


Guns And Roses

by Enigma3000



Category: Article 15 (2019), Article 15 (Movie 2019), Kota Factory (Web Series), Original Work, RANJEET SUPREMACY, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020), kota factory
Genre: Angst, Angst and Drama, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Character Death, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Humor, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, In later chapters - Freeform, M/M, Original Story - Freeform, Pain, Police, Politics, Romance, SO, Shooting, Sort Of, Survivor Guilt, THANKFULLY, Thriller, Uniform Kink, Violence, a lot of dard, acab but like except one (1) good boy, aka therapy for free, anyway, because its me, eheh, i have 3 chapters written, i just keep starting chapter fics and yeeting bye, implied ashleel, jk jk, mutual dard, physically cannot no humor, so much hurt, thats nice, unless?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27473755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigma3000/pseuds/Enigma3000
Summary: Ayan Ranjan is a hero.It's what he wants to be, what he's made himself out to be, what he chooses to be. No matter what that choice entails. No matter how many people he has to hurt in the process. Including himself. The greater good is what matters- always has, always will. A police officer by profession, a man with a fierce, fierce sense of justice and responsibility by heart.Dangerously so, sometimes.---Jitendra Tripathi is in love.Frustrating as it is, it's the truth. In love with a stubborn, righteous man obsessed with playing the hero even when it isn't his place. Even if it hurts Jeetu. It's terrifying, sometimes, loving someone like that. Jeetu is a teacher, crime and death and dealing with long absences aren't really histhing.It's more terrifying when you hear the love of your life get shot over the phone.(Probably second only to being shot)---Funny, really, how an attempt on one's life, an insidious plot waiting to be unraveled, and an unsolved case will put a dwindling relationship into perspectivePerhaps, even save it.
Relationships: Ayan Ranjan/Jeetu Bhaiya, Ayan Ranjan/Jitendra Tripathi
Comments: 39
Kudos: 84





	1. Heartbreak Hotel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ranjeet supremacists](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ranjeet+supremacists), [queernozii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queernozii/gifts).



> Every chapter is a Guns n Roses song. Sue me.

7:23 pm, the clock on Jeetu’s wall said.

He should have been home nearly two hours ago.

Jeetu sighed, the sharp sound cutting through the silent darkness of his office. He’d tried to go home that day, he really had, but the suffocating emptiness had proved too much for his heart. He didn’t mind being alone, not in the slightest. In fact, he preferred it at times, though he never really told anyone that. He wasn’t sure why.

But he was in love, now.

And love will do funny things to a man.

Like make him loathe the loneliness he once called solitude. 

It was frustrating, to say the least, to have nothing to comfort him after a long day. But for a few, oddly tense texts (Ayan wasn’t big on texting. Or calling, or anything, for that matter), a comfort movie (nothing romantic, Jeetu was in enough pain as it were), and the cat that occasionally wandered into his house of its own free will sometimes.

Billu wasn’t… _ his _ cat, as such (pardon the uncreative name, he had been trying not to get attached, and names were the gateway to attachment. The fact that the cat had been frequenting their (?) house for 9 months now was clear evidence he had failed rather spectacularly, but the name had stuck)

He came and left as he pleased, rarely ever stuck around for long, and seemed excessively distant, honestly. And yet, here Jeetu was. Missing him anyway, each day he spent away from home. Sometimes it felt like jeetu cared a lot more for the cat than it did for him. Other times, Billu curled up in his lap and dozed off as he corrected frankly abysmal test papers. 

So it was sort of confusing.

Yes, all of that sounded awfully familiar, but Jeetu didn’t want to acknowledge it just yet.

The cat seemed to come home more often now, had been for the past few months. Perhaps it sensed that he was alone. Jeetu didn’t… get cats. Or dogs, for that matter, his only pet as a child had been an African grey parrot. 

But he was a man of science, and science suggested animals could tell these things. Billu could well be aware that Jeetu wasn’t in the best shape these days, for all he knew. 

Plus, seeing jeetu break down in front of the TV at 2:00 in the night probably tipped the cat off.

Who knew, really.

All Jeetu knew was that he missed Ayan. 

Missed him so much it  _ hurt. _

So he had decided to do something about that, that evening. He’d decided to call his bastard of a boyfriend up, yell at him for a few seconds (a minute at most), and then politely ask him how his day had gone. Like he usually did, every night. Not the yelling, the rest of it.

Though the yelling happened more often, now…

Jeetu pushed the thought away. Only for it to be replaced by another, just as pleasant one.

It was almost always Jeetu who called.

Rarely Ayan, if ever. It was pathetic, he knew, to get excited when Ayan called him first. The man who called Jeetu the love of his life. It shouldn’t have been this hard for him to make an effort to keep their relationship alive.

Jeetu had even suggested Emailing, but that had crashed and burned.

The fact did bother him, at times. Only for Jeetu to brush it off, assure himself that nothing was wrong, that Ayan was just… like that, and that it would all go away when he would come back.

Once again, love did funny things to a man.

It didn’t matter. Ayan had to be back soon. That was what he had promised, after all. That it was a mere four month reassignment- a form of, well, punishment, after he made the utterly stupid mistake of responding to a senior’s “CONGRATULATIONS!” with “...cool.” He would be back soon, the six hellish months were to end in three weeks. 

He’d added two months to his own assignment, citing the caste violence running rampant through Lal Gaon.

Jeetu had been heartbroken. But he had understood.

Even those two months would be over soon.

Or so he thought.

Jeetu rubbed his tired eyes, hit the number on speed dial, and waited for the man on the other end to pick up. Not impatiently, not really. But not patiently, either. He was in no hurry, but his chest always held a peculiar sort of urgency when he wanted to talk to Ayan. He could feel the heaviness in his heart evaporate as he heard a soft “Hello?” coming from the other end.

Only to have that very heart broken.

Once again.

* * *

  
  


"No."

Jeetu shook his head in sheer disbelief, forgetting for a moment that Ayan couldn't see him.

"No. This isn't fair, Ayan, you said you'd come home after this. You said you wouldn't leave.”

Jeetu could tell his voice was shaking- something it never did.

He couldn’t believe his ears.

Six months. Six goddamn, torturous months he had waited for this son of a bitch to come home, six whole months jeetu had waited for his house to feel like home again. And for what? Fucking hell, for what? Just to hear that he had been wrong to wait, that Ayan was breaking his word- Jeetu’s heart- all over fucking again?

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t.

“You promised.”

Jeetu despised how small his voice sounded. 

Ayan closed his eyes, just as the guilt overwhelmed him. 

He knew what he was doing. Ayan may have been many things, but oblivious or self centred wasn’t one of them. He knew how deeply he was hurting jeetu, hell, he’d done the same thing to another before. Up and left without warning, after being too cowardly, too weak to tell the person he was abandoning until he absolutely had to.

He wasn’t sure Renee had ever really forgiven him. 

Perhaps he didn’t deserve it, either.

Granted, it had been for noble reasons last time too- Ayan had decided it was for the greater good for him to return to India, to make a difference here, instead of staying back in the US with his then girlfriend of two years. He had felt it was his duty, an odd sort of responsibility he had placed on himself for reasons he couldn’t begin to explain.

All he had known was that it was right.

To come back.

To make a change, instead of abandoning the streets he grew up on, thereby giving up on them forever.

That was how he measured right and wrong- by judging what did the most good to the world around him. Even if it meant fracturing someone else’s.

Even so, he wasn’t oblivious to the scars he left behind.

He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this with Jeetu. Ayan was in love himself, as much as the thought terrified him some days. Leaving Jeetu would destroy him too, but it had to be done. Lal gaon still needed him- for how long, exactly, even the almighty probably couldn’t tell. And Ayan knew their relationship wouldn’t survive a few more months of long distance. 

If it were only going to be months.

Jeetu deserved to move on. To find someone as brave as he was, who loved as freely as he did and wasn’t afraid to sacrifice “the greater good” in search of his own happiness. 

Someone who wasn’t scared to be happy.

Someone better than Ayan, who would treat him the way he deserved to be treated. Someone who didn’t rush through the words “I love you” like they would get lost along the way, or stop midway through, unless he got them out fast.

Ayan had gotten better at that, much to Jeetu’s joy.

The months apart had reversed that.

Ayan winced at the tremor in Jeetu's voice, only all too clear even over the phone, and he hated himself for putting it there. 

"I'm sorry, I know, I said it would just be six months, but- things are still so fucked up here, I can't-"

"CAN'T WHAT? KEEP YOUR GODDAMN WORD?"

His throat was constricting.

Fuck.

"SIX MONTHS. YOU SAID SIX MONTHS. AND I WAITED ALL THOSE SIX MONTHS- AND FOR WHAT? JUST FOR YOU TO TELL ME YOU LIED TO MY FACE?"

Jeetu didn’t do well with lies, one terrible ex had taught him well enough to be wary of them. Granted, this was a wildly different context and it was highly unlikely that Jeetu would ever find Ayan in the arms of a very naked coworker- but still. A lie was a lie.

And Ayan knew that. He knew how much Jeetu hated being lied to. But this wasn’t a lie, not really. He had originally intended to come back after four months, and then six- but the violence just refused to end.

Granted, it was much better now, the murderers had been caught.

But there was still work to be done. There was no way he could have predicted what the aftermath would be like.

Hard as he tried, though, he still felt like he had lied.

"Jeetu, I can't just leave now-"

Jeetu let out a sharp laugh, more rage than amusement.

"WHY NOT? WHY THE HELL NOT?"

Ayan scowled.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, stop interrupting for one second-"

Jeetu grit his teeth. 

"Things are still messy here. Another police vehicle set on fire last night, with a near casualty this time. All in retaliation to the rapists being caught. Second in just two days, Jeetu. I need to be here."

Ayan sounded so calm. As if what he was saying made perfect sense, and that Jeetu was just being irrational. 

Jeetu wanted to punch him.

"Oh, so there's no officer there apart from you? Nobody to take your place? Is that it?"

The voice on the other end went dead quiet.

Ayan opened his mouth to respond, but let it fall back shut when he realised he had nothing to say. He had no defense. Jeetu was right, there were other officers to take his place. But call it what you will- narcissism, a superiority complex, a burning anxiety- Ayan couldn’t stomach the thought of letting anyone else handle this. It filled him with dread. What if they got it wrong? What if they reversed the changes he made?

"I..." he started quietly, taking a deep breath.

"I can't let myself walk away. Not now, after how far we've come. There's more I need to do. I can't just leave-"

Jeetu laughed.

"Unless it's me?"

_...Fuck. _

Ayan grimaced at his sudden change in tone.

Even though he believed he had enough reasons and more to stay, he was expecting Jeetu's anger. He wasn’t an idiot- though jeetu may disagree- he knew jeetu had every right and more to be angry.

He'd expected his boyfriend to yell. To curse his name.

But Jeetu had crossed even those, into a rage that had rendered him deadly calm.

"You're only okay leaving if it's me, then?"

Ayan ran a tense hand through his hair, missing suddenly the way it used to be Jeetu’s fingers there. As if he had any right to miss Jeetu, considering what he was doing to the man right then, in that very moment.

"I'm- I don't know if I'm staying permanently, you can't be sure I'm leaving."

Jeetu blinked back tears.

"Then how long? How much longer are you going to make me wait?"

Ayan sighed.

He wished he knew.

"... I'm not sure, Jeetu."

Ayan heard a bitter scoff on the other end. Somewhat heavy, like Jeetu was holding back indignant tears that demanded to be shed.

"So, let me get this straight: you went from telling me you want to grow old with me, to going thousands of kilometres away but swearing up and down that you'll be back in six months, to saying you're not sure you're ever coming back."

That wasn’t fair.

Ayan was considering it, but he hadn’t said it yet.

And it probably wasn’t even true.

“I didn’t say I’m nev-”

“DIDN’T YOU? FUCKING DIDN’T YOU?”

He felt his own eyes fill to the brim.

"Please, Jeetu, just listen."

Jeetu smiled, hurt etched into every inch of his expression.

"Fine."

"These people need me."

"And I don't?"

"Try to understand, for god's sake, my conscience won't let me leave. Not while there's still so much to be changed."

"You have a conscience?"

Ayan set his cup down on his table. Hard.

That was completely fucking uncalled for 

"Yeah, I do, so please forgive me for choosing right over easy. I'm genuinely so sorry for picking the greater good over you-"

Jeetu chuckled.

"No, Ayan. You picked your hero complex over me."

The utter defeat and crushing disappointment in Jeetu's voice made Ayan's heart clench.

Some small part of him was scared that Jeetu was right. And it wasn’t the first time, no, hje often found himself wondering if his need to pursue “the greater good” was merely a thin veneer to hide his inability to commit. To anyone. Even to himself- He always seemed to be running away from who he was.

Even here, even now, officer Ayan Ranjan was eons away from the Ayan his friends back home knew.

The Ayan Jeetu knew. And loved.

"... Don't give up on me just yet, I haven't decided."

Jeetu sighed.

"It shouldn't be a hard choice, Ayan."

Jeetu regretted the words as soon as he said them.

Granted, he was angry beyond all measure, and granted, Ayan was hurting him in one of the worst possible ways after swearing up and down that he never, ever would. And yet… this accusation crossed a line.

Because it went to the very core of their relationship, it asked if Ayan even really loved Jeetu, in its own strange way. Not outright, not even implied, no.

But it did raise eyebrows.

Jeetu seemed to be insisting love was the only right choice. As though the very existence of an alternative meant that the love they had for each other wasn’t real, or true.

Bullshit. Even Jeetu knew that was bullshit.

But he had uttered the words, now, and there was no going back.

"Jeetu… that's not fa-"

Ayan trailed off, seemingly for no discernible reason.

Jeetu waited a second or two for him to go on, and then a second longer, frowning when he was merely met with more silence.

"...Ayan?"

"I have to go "

His voice was oddly rushed. Panicked, even.

"Ayan, we aren't done here- AYAN-"

All Jeetu received in response was a soft, uncharacteristically frightened "fuck," the likes of which he had and the sound of hurried footsteps on ceramic flooring. Muffled, like the phone had been shoved into a pocket.

He felt his heart begin to race.

Something was horribly wrong.

"Ayan, what's going on? What-"

And then he heard it.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Gunshots, loud and clear. Unmistakable to the point that Jeetu felt his blood turn to ice in his veins.

"ARE YOU OKAY? AYAN-"

No response.

Fuck.

"SAY SOMETH-"

The line went dead.


	2. Think About You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayan was fine.
> 
> He was.
> 
> He had to be

There had been times, over the years, when Jeetu felt like his world had come to a standstill. 

The earliest he could remember was the day his report card had come back with an overall percentage of 91%, and mummy and papa had been so, so angry. Granted, it wasn’t entirely his fault, he’d just taken on too many olympiads and competitive examinations all at once (4 of them, only 2 of which he was actually interested in). But this was Jeetu. He got full marks in his sleep.

The horrendous grade had stopped his heart, and the subsequent yelling that followed had temporarily pushed him out of reality.

Nightmare, honestly.

The most recent one he remembered was from three years ago. He didn’t like talking or thinking about this one (or most of the other ones, for that matter, but this hurt the most). To be fair, it isn’t the most pleasant experience, coming home 2 hours early with a bouquet and a box of chocolates for your girlfriend, and seeing her in the bedroom with a man who isn’t you.

The worst, by far, was when he had received a call from his best friend’s sister (who he fancied quite a bit, so he had been thrilled). 

Only for her to tell him, through tears, that they had lost her brother to a freak road accident.

At 19.

On his way to Jeetu’s house.

And even those three _put together_ paled hilariously in comparison to the utter dread that flooded Jeetu’s every cell after hearing those gunshots.

His voice came out desperate.

"Ayan?” 

Silence. 

Of course there was silence. 

Silence on the other side, perhaps, but not within. Jeetu could practically hear his own heart thudding away in his chest, like it would stop any fucking second now. Hear every sharp breath as it left his constricting lungs, the roaring in his ears, the sound of those goddamn gunshots echoing again and again and-

Fuck.

_(Bang. Bang. Bang)_

_No, stop._

_Stop._

Jeetu forced his voice out of his unwilling throat again, every damn word dragged out of his throat like all he wanted to do was scream. Or go silent, o- anything, anything that didn't involve him begging the man he loved for a sign that he was alive.

And yet, as much as Jeetu wanted to stand still and let the world pass him by- he couldn’t. He needed to hear Ayan’s voice again, needed to know he was okay. That he was alive, and breathing.

_(Please let him be okay)_

Jeetu’s hand clenched hard around the pen he had been toying with before Ayan picked up the phone (as much as his students would struggle to believe, their agony aunt did get nervous sometimes- fiddling with things often helped him calm down)

He hadn’t put it down throughout the call.

And now he couldn’t.

His hand was starting to shake. He could feel it.

“AYAN,” he shouted into the silence of the room. 

Someone could hear him. Someone probably did. 

But Jeetu couldn’t give half a damn- he just needed to know Ayan could hear him. 

“KYA HUA-"

Silence. 

All silence.

Somehow, it was the loudest, most piercing sound he had heard all his life. 

_(Bang. Bang. Bang)_

He could feel the ground slipping from under his feet. Jeetu had no doubt he would have fallen to his knees had he not been sitting already- his feeble attempt at getting to his feet had been met with a rather pathetic fall back into his seat. He felt nauseated and empty all at once, felt like the world was spinning much too fast and stood too still. Everything was out of place, everything was wrong. 

Jeetu swallowed.

It did nothing.

_(Bang._

_Bang._

_B-)_

No. 

No no no, no, that wasn't- it couldn't have been real. Jeetu wouldn’t accept that it was. He couldn’t.

No, Ayan was okay, he- it was fine-

It had to be fine.

_He_ had to be fine.

Jeetu took a deep breath, not without a strong shudder passing through it. 

"Ayan," Jeetu tried again, quieter this time.

It was stupid to expect a response. He knew it was.

The line had gone dead, cut off all of a sudden. All he had heard was muffled, hurried footsteps like Ayan was running, away from- No. God, please, no- Towards someone, as fast as his tired, work-worn legs would allow. And then it was quiet.

Unnervingly, terrifyingly quiet.

Jeetu knew that if he looked at his phone now, then all he would see would be his wallpaper.

A simple, operating system assigned picture of a starry sky.

Not Ayan, as one who didn’t know either of them very well would probably expect. 

Not a picture of them both together, either- they weren't the sentimental, grand gesture type. Neither felt the need for sappy wallpapers. They had wordlessly deemed it unnecessary, together. In the beginning, it felt pointless to have a picture of your significant other when you came home to them at the end of every day. 

When they never left your mind’s eye in the first place.

And then, once he left… it just hurt.

Being reminded of what you couldn’t have, again and again.

So a generic, simplistic wallpaper it was.

And Jeetu was grateful for that, because in that moment he couldn't have handled a picture of his boyfriend. All he could fucking see, all his mind would let him see was a horrible image of Ayan on the floor, bleeding-

No.

_(Bang. Bang. Bang)_

_NO._

It would be fine, he firmly reminded himself.

He would call Ayan back now, and yell at him for giving him the scare of his fucking life.

He would hear Ayan laugh at him for being stupid enough to think he was hurt (or worse), and then Jeetu would cry into his phone and tell Ayan to never let that happen ever again, and Ayan would lovingly mock him for being emotionally high strung, Jeetu would yell at him some more, Ayan would apologise. Like he always did.

With that dumb half smile Jeetu had fallen in love with all those years ago, invariably followed by an "I love you" that sounded like an excuse for Jeetu to forgive him. But one he really meant anyway. Jeetu knew he meant it.

Perhaps that was why he still loved Ayan. Even if it seemed a herculean task for him to say three simple words people told each other every day without a moment’s thought, he still said it. That was what mattered, in the end.

It was rather poetic, in some sad way, to get to hear from him something he could never tell another.

Jeetu blinked rapidly at his phone, trying to get himself to breathe again before he called Ayan back. He didn't want Ayan to know how terrified he was. He'd just end up feeling guilty about scaring Jeetu, and Jeetu would feel bad that Ayan was feeling guilty for no fault of his. And then their initial conversation about his glaringly obvious lack of effort to keep their relationship alive 

_(if_ he’s _alive in the first place,_ his brain supplied helpfully)

Would get side tracked, and-

That wouldn't do.

They probably weren't even gunshots, those sounds he heard. He didn't know what else they could be, didn't let himself wonder out of fear that he would find nothing that sounded… that much like gunshots. 

That he'd have to accept the reality that they were what he feared they were, after all.

_(Bang-)_

_Fucking stop._

The pen he was holding nearly broke under the pressure of his tense fingers. A cheap, five rupee one, thankfully, he would never dare damage a gift from an admiring student. Every gift he had ultimately ended up in his closet, and stayed there.

_But even if the sounds were… those_ , Jeetu couldn’t help his near irrational optimism.

_They don't necessarily have to be directed at Ayan._

That was it. 

Maybe it was a shootout outside, between people who didn't have anything to do with his boyfriend. And Ayan went to investigate.

Or maybe... Ayan was in a police station, for god's sake, there were plenty of guns around. Maybe one of them went off by accident.

_(thrice?_ His brain asked him).

Jeetu didn’t let that valid question faze him.

Even men of science could only find solace in blind faith, sometimes.

And it was that blind faith that kept him struggling against what he knew to be an inevitable reality. It was that blind faith that whispered soothing words in his ear, even if another voice seemed to scream at him that it was a boldfaced lie. 

It was that faith, in the end, that told him there were others in the station.

Plenty of people to shoot at too, no matter what Ayan seemed to believe about how he was the only officer there worth a dime.

_Bastard._

So it didn't have to be the worst. Jeetu wouldn't let himself believe the worst. Not until he was sure. And he wouldn’t be sure, not until someone picked up the damn phone _(Ayan, please let it be Ayan)_ and told him what the fuck was going on, put his bitch of an imaginatrion to rest at long last. Put him out of his misery. That was all Jeetu wanted.

He called again, with shaking fingers.

No answer.

His stomach twisted into itself. 

This didn’t have to mean anything, Maybe Ayan wasn’t around his phone, maybe he had gone out and left it behind, or maybe it had fallen out somewhere, 

or…

One of these. 

It had to be one of these.

It couldn’t be anything else.

Jeetu tried again. Science kicked in, where faith began to fail him.

Once was an experiment, two out of three was a statistically significant result. A second try was warranted, it only made sense. And besides, Ayan would pick up this time. Jeetu would hear the voice he had longed to hear in person for so long. And all he would hear would be his own sigh of relief, not the echo of his own blood rushing through his veins.

He would pick up.

_(Maybe his phone currency ran out mid call, maybe his phone died, maybe-)_

No answer.

Fuck. 

Fuck fuck _fuck._

He gave it one last try. Two was statistically significant, three on three was a definitive result. He would hear back this time, he had to.

Science aside, third time's the charm. 

That's what everyone said.

Jeetu didn't believe it. But now he did. He wanted to. 

His mind seemeed to be at war with itself, torn between accepting that calling again and again was pointless, and slamming the fucking number into his phone again and again until he was graced with the goddamn response he needed.

_Come on. Come on._

Ayan didn't pick up.

Of course he was let down again.

Of course he was.

Jeetu closed his eyes.

There was no point trying anymore. No denying that Ayan wasn't going to pick up anytime soon. Jeetu didn't know why, really, but there were more reasons than just the one echoing in his mind that explained his boyfriend's sudden absence.

_(Maybe he’s breaking up a fight, maybe the charge ran out just as the gunshots happened, he always forgets to charge his damn phone-)_

His eyes flew open, just as realisation struck.

In the flurry of panic, he’d forgotten something that could potentially put his all consuming terror to rest.

He laughed, shaky and relieved- though only minutely.

The number Ayan had given him, just in case Jeetu couldn’t reach him on his personal number. To be used when he was out on a field day, or had forgotten to charge his phone, something just as stupid. Just as normal.

Not for something like this, dear god.

Jeetu dialled the number (one he'd committed to memory rather easily). He got through four digits when the words “Ayan station 2” showed up on his phone, which he clicked on autopilot. He brought a surprisingly firm, unshaking hand upto his ear, as he waited for someone to pick up. He breathed in deep, apprehension etched into his expression.

Exhaling didn’t cross his panic stricken mind.

The phone rang thrice.

Jeetu nearly threw his own out the window, every fibre of him beginning to question if anyone would ever lift the damn phone at all. Maybe it was written in the fuckingstars that nobody would pick his call today.

Someone did.

The relief he felt was numbing.

But temporary.

So, so fucking temporary that it was almost amusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :o what did jeetu hear, I wonder


	3. Oh My God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't Ayan who answers the call. But it'll do for now.

It wasn’t the voice Jeetu had been hoping to hear, no. The voice of the man on the other side was too light, too young to be his boyfriend’s, as much as he had been wishing he would hear the “Hello?” that had grown on him over the years. 

He didn’t know why, really, there was absolutely no rationality to it- but such was the nature of hope. It didn’t always make sense.

“Lal Gaon Station.”

Jeetu let himself breathe. Not fully, not comfortably enough to relieve even a third of the oppressive pressure closing in on his lungs. But it was a breath nonetheless, and it was more than his body had allowed him in far too long.

Perhaps Jeetu was overthinking (he hoped that was it, at least). The man who picked up the phone sounded calm. Too calm, and while that should have relaxed him Jeetu couldn't deny there was a hollow feeling in his chest when he heard the casual, non committal greeting. Why wasn't that man panicking? Hadn't he heard the gunshots? 

And yet, Jeetu couldn't deny himself the palpable calmness that overtook him.

“Hello?” Jeetu responded, too stunned by the sudden, hollow relief to say much beyond that. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say next, honestly, he hadn’t even been expecting to get this far. 

He waited a second to collect himself.

The officer on the other end didn’t.

“Kya hua sir?”

Jeetu fumbled on his words.

“Oh, I, uh-”

He tripped over the several thoughts flitting far too quickly across his mind, struggling to settle on one to voice out loud. There was so much he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to know. Was Ayan okay? What were those sounds he heard? What was going on? Why wouldn’t he pick his damn phone? Why couldn’t he just decide on one question, fuck-

The man let out a sigh. 

Jeetu felt a flare of anger pass through him, he never really did well with being sighed at, or having eyes rolled at him, or- anything, really, that made him feel small (he felt small enough as it were, thank you) and somewhat annoying. He would much rather have people just straight up tell him to fuck off. He’d been at the receiving end of both, and the latter was somehow far easier to stomach.

His well-warranted indignation was only bolstered by the fact that his life seemed to be falling apart at the seams, and this man had the audacity to pretend nothing was wrong, to sigh like Jeetu was taking too long to place a damn order at a fucking mcdonald’s or something. He had the audacity to expect Jeetu to hurry up, when he was struggling to barely get any words out in the first place. It wasn't fair.

Granted, the man didn’t know Jeetu was in a bit of a shock, but it was a fair fucking assumption to make when someone called a damn police station.

_ Who trained these people? _

Jeetu grit his teeth, reminding himself to reign his mind in before it effectively escaped the terror it was running from. He tended to get irritable when he was panicking.

“Is this lal gaon station?’

“Yes, sir, that is what I said.”

He didn’t have anger issues, really, but Jeetu would have liked nothing more to shove a foot into his table at that moment. It was the possibility of someone hearing him, and subsequently coming to check on him, that held him back.

Jeetu fought to find his words again, and finally settled on some.

“Is Ayan- I mean, officer Ranjan there?”

“Aap kaun?”

Jeetu closed his eyes, in an attempt to quell the rage that rose up bright in his chest again. What use was his identity to this man? What the hell would he do knowing what Jeetu was to Ayan?

He knew, or some small, quiet, rational part of him knew that it was probably customary to ask this question to anyone who called inquiring about an officer. For the officer’s own safety, to maintain records, he didn’t know. But he could tell this man wasn’t doing it out of a personal vendetta against Jeetu.

“Jitendra Tripathi,” came his curt response.

He heard the sound of a page being flipped, followed by silence which suggested his name was being written down.

“Tripathi… can you spell that out?”

This was fucking ridiculous.

Jeetu spelled it out anyway, vaguely registering the gnawing pit in his stomach that the question brought him. It wasn’t anger, or frustration, no. Though those were very much present in the overwhelming mixture of emotions he was feeling. The odd sense of... wrong, was far too intense to ignore.

He couldn’t tell what it was, but something felt off. Something  _ was  _ off.

Something even beyond the worry he was feeling, like this was a lot worse than he anticipated, lot worse than he could see.

“What message do I give him? And should I tell him a friend had called?”

The gnawing got worse.

But the second question felt like a punch to the gut.

Jeetu fucking hated it.

Because he hated lying about his identity, hated having to hide that huge a part of himself, to downplay what he had with Ayan to this disgusting an extent. He hated every single instance that served as a reminder of the world they lived in- a world where Jeetu was a friend, anywhere beyond their closed doors. Where they had to hide what they had, live under the radar and pretend to be what they weren’t.

And here he was, being forced to do it all over fucking again, when he already seemed to be spiralling.

He had no other choice.

“Yes, I’m his friend. And can I talk to him myself, please?”

“Oh, sir isn’t here right now.”

Jeetu’s heart stopped.

No. No, he had to be in the station, he was always in the station at this hour. A workaholic by nature, that man there was no way he wasn’t there. The days had begun demanding more of him now, so as much as jeetu chided him for it, he only left well after darkness had descended. He had to be there. Especially on a Monday evening. 

Jeetu’s mind roved.

Maybe he was out on field work, something he hadn’t seen coming. That had to be it. Ayan had, after all, said that things had started going haywire in the village again. That would explain the gunshots too.

_ That means It didn’t have to be Ayan who was shot at,  _ he told himself.

The thought dissipated some of the worry clouding his head. To a minute extent, yes, but it was still a welcome change.

“When will he be back?”

Jeetu would wait. 

Jeetu would always wait.

“He’ll only be back tomorrow morning, sir,”

_ What? _

_ No- _

“but you can leave a mes-”

Jeetu’s fingers found their way deep into his palm.

That didn’t make sense. 

That didn’t fucking make sense, why would he be out all night? 

Without informing Jeetu, too. Long distance correspondence with Ayan left much to be desired, that Jeetu knew. As compared to Kota, where he could simply hand Ayan a mug of something sweet, ruffle his unkempt hair, ask him how his day had been. Ayan never told him what he had planned for each day- Partly because he didn’t know himself, sometimes, the days proved too unpredictable at times. And partly because Jeetu really didn’t need to know either. 

Just as long as he received sporadic texts throughout the day (which had reduced in number, but jeetu couldn’t think about that right now), and got to talk to Ayan in the nights, Jeetu was willing to make do with what little he knew. 

Ayan always told him when he was too preoccupied to call.

He hadn’t said a word about being out on the streets today. Hell, he’d specifically agreed to this call, after having missed them three days in a row. He wouldn’t have done that if he was busy.

And what made this all the more strange was… Ayan had answered the phone, anyway. He rarely ever called when he was out. It distracted him from what he was doing, he said, and Jeetu understood. He really did. It was the same reason he refused to answer any calls that came to him in the middle of a class.

Nothing about this added up.

His insides seemed to actively be rebelling against him, at this point.

_ What the hell was going on? _

Jeetu found himself lost for words again. He didn’t know what to ask, didn’t know what to think- It was possible that this wasn’t a case that required all his attention, perhaps he could afford to be a little distracted. Perhaps that was why Ayan answered his call.

But then again... a case that didn’t require your attention… Didn’t really require staying out all night.

Unless…

_ Oh. _

_ Oh, dear god. _

“Where-”

His voice was shaking again. This wasn’t good, fuck, this wasn’t good at all.

“Where is he?” Jeetu asked, uncertain if he wanted that question answered.

"He went home early today, left about an hour ago."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really cannot resist cliffhangers, many apologies.


	4. Live and Let Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sorrowfully poetic, really, how in the end, the cause of Ayan's death was Ayan himself"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, PLEASE AVOID OF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY/DISLIKE:
> 
> BLOOD  
> GUN VIOLENCE  
> DEATH  
> GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF PAIN  
> VOMITING  
> GRIEF

Ayan stared at the silent mobile he had in his uncertain grasp, and silently, guiltily wished that the inevitable ring he was waiting for would never come.

Granted,  _ he _ had been the one who had suggested this call. He had been the one who had missed Jeetu’s voice too much after three days of silence, three days of not hearing the easy laugh he’d fallen in love with, the slight playful lilt in Jeetu’s tone when he spoke to Ayan, and Ayan alone. He missed the silence that spanned between them sometimes, when neither really had anything to say- the kind they just let float, too comfortable to be disturbed.

He missed Jeetu.

Which was exactly what made Ayan deeply, deeply regret the decision he was toying with- had been toying with, for about a week now.

A decision Jeetu wouldn’t like.

Ayan had promised Jeetu, given him his word that he would be home in three weeks. And for good, this time. The wait was to be over- Jeetu would have Ayan all to himself again. That was where it was supposed to stand.

But over the past few days in lal gaon- a village aptly named for the amount of bloodshed it saw, honestly- the aftermath of the horrific rape-murder Ayan had been thrust into the middle of had gotten more violent than he had ever anticipated.

He’d been naive enough to think it would end with the case being solved. That he could go home, reassured that he changed this hellish place for the better.

There isn’t much the universe punishes harsher than naivety.

Crime, assaults, arson, even- all at an all time high.

Ayan had felt helpless. Incapable of seeing a path out of this mess that didn’t involve his direct involvement in cleaning it up. But that meant breaking his promise to Jeetu, staying here for at least a few months longer. Perhaps more.

Jeetu would hate it.

Perhaps, even hate him.

And then, there was the other, far worse idea Ayan had been toying with. An idea that he felt obligated to consider, even if it made him sick to his stomach and wish he could get absorbed into the earth at merely entertaining the thought.

He was considering moving here.

Forever.

Put a permanent end to the shitshow this village was overrun by.

Jeetu  _ definitely _ wouldn’t like that.

Ayan’s ringtone cut through the tense, nervous silence of his quiet office, as though on cue. Though expected, it was still rather sudden, Ayan was snapped out of his thoughts a little too quick. He started violently, nearly dropping his phone in the process.

So much for being coolheaded.

He didn’t need to take a look at the display name to figure out who it was, only one person ever seemed to call his personal number these days.

Ayan read the name on his screen, anyway. 

And felt his stomach sink.

This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation at all

* * *

  
  


"... Don't give up on me just yet, I haven't decided." Ayan said, meek and unsure

He heard Jeetu sigh. A sound so unlike him. Quiet and defeated.

Somehow, this hurt more than his rage. 

Ayan felt his throat beginning to constrict, and silently, desperately willed it away. Partly because he didn’t feel it would do this rapidly falling apart conversation much good for him to breakdown in between.

And partly because… he felt like he didn’t deserve to feel bad.

"it shouldn't be a hard choice, Ayan."

Ayan stilled, the restless, agitated tapping of his fingers on polished wood coming to a sudden halt.

He didn't know what to say.

This wasn’t fair

(or was it?)

His mind was at war with itself. He considered retorting sharply, saying something just as hurtful right back (if not more) so Jeetu would regret all the venom that he had allowed to come out of his mouth.

Ayan wanted to cut the phone right then and there, show him exactly what he thought of being put in an impossible situation like this. He never did well with ultimatums, never liked making decisions which involved sacrificing the other. Especially in times like this, where both his choices were equally important.

After all, who does?

But on the other hand...

Ayan bit his lip.

Some small, horrible part of him, some part that Ayan usually kept buried deep within because facing it was his own personal sort of torture- it wondered if Jeetu was right.

It shouldn't have been a hard choice.

Perhaps, it shouldn't have been a choice at all.

Ayan knew what he was doing, he wasn't blind to his mistakes. He probably made a great many of them, honestly, but his slight redemption came in the form of being able to acknowledge them. No matter how hard it was, how ashamed and small it left him feeling.

And here- it wasn't just hard

It was near fucking impossible to accept.

He was walking out of Jeetu's life, abandoning him after wordlessly promising himself- maybe, even Jeetu- every day they woke up to each other that he was here to stay.

That he wouldn't make the same mistakes he had before.

He still deeply, heavily regretted what he did to Renee, sometimes. She hadn't found it in herself to fall in love with someone new until over two years later

All because he had promised not to walk away, and had anyway.

He didn't want that to happen with Jeetu. Ayan didn't want to hurt someone like that again. He loved Jeetu too much to bring him heartbreak this profound without having it eat away at his conscience.

He chuckled darkly

How often did what he wanted and reality align, really?

Ayan absently turned his gaze to the window next to him, as he often did when he felt trapped. Staring at the open sky often seemed to calm him down. The moon, specifically.

It used to, at least.

It reminded him too much of the night they spent under the moonlight, time spent in a conversation full of hushed whispers and open hearts. What used to be a reminder of a beautiful night only stood to symbolise what he couldn’t have, what he was going to lose

Ayan closed his eyes and sighed, too tired- physically, emotionally, every other way that was possible- to do much more than that. He could feel the back of his eyes beginning to grow damp.

He squared his jaw.

Hurting Jeetu was something he would never be able to forgive himself for.

But leaving Laalgaon...

Ayan shuddered to even think what would happen.

The village had been straight out of a horror movie, a cesspool of suffering and oppression when he had arrived. It was better now, yes, but they still had a long, long way to go. A path, Ayan believed, was his sworn duty to lead the village down.

Ayan knew better than to simply take credit for all the change that had occured since he had set foot in this place. Change like this wasn’t brought about by one, or even a few. It had taken a village, quite literally.

But denying he had a significant part to play in setting this wheel in motion- it wasn't modesty. Just a pointless lie.

He was very much a part of the equation that had brought the village to this point of growth. Removing himself was a risk he wasn't sure he was willing to take. The thought of lal gaon reverting to the hellscape it used to be was too much for Ayan to stomach, let alone allow it to happen

These people deserved better than the hatred fuelled violence they experienced every day. They deserved better than being treated like animals, they deserved to live with the dignity and safety they deserved. And Ayan's presence, the work he had done, had more or less ensured it.

To an extent. 

Vehicles were still being lit, people still being kept out of places they had every goddamn right to enter. Ayan still had fights to break up, riots to disperse, even an attempted murder to investigate. He was needed here. There was no denying it.

But there was no denying he was needed back in Kota too.

He loved Jeetu. 

That was where it stood. More than anyone he ever had, more than anyone he ever would. Even if Jeetu was having trouble believing it right now (and with right reason) Ayan loved him with all his heart, maybe more.

Leaving Jeetu was leaving a part of his soul behind.

His tired, somewhat lost mind wandered to quantum physics for some inexplicable reason, thinking about how particles could exist in two places at once. Or something. He didn't know, didn't care much to find out either. But god, did he wish that could be him.

He exhaled softly.

This wasn't just a hard choice.

It was the hardest choice he'd ever had to make

"...that's not fa-" he started to protest

Jeetu clenched his teeth, got ready to refute an argument with hellfire of his own, and waited for Ayan to finish his no doubt mindless, idiotic defense before unleashing all he had.

He waited.

And waited.

All he got was silence.

Ayan stopped abruptly, trailing his incomplete sentence off midway.

Ayan squinted into the darkness outside his window, apprehension laced into the slight furrow of his brows. 

He could've sworn he saw something move in the bushes. He blinked, craned his neck until he could see clearly into the hedge that sat at the walls on the other end of the yard- and he heard it again.

Leaves rustling. 

An ordinary enough sound, it wasn’t supposed to be ominous. But one that sent a chill up Ayan’s spine and made him tense up all the same.

The sound was quiet.

short, like it was unintentional. 

Like Ayan wasn't meant to have heard it.

He found himself reaching into his pocket out of sheer force of habit, ready as ever at moment’s notice to defend himself like he’d been trained to do for years, against whatever adversary was out there. Only to realise, with a sinking feeling, that he'd left his gun in his holster. 

And his holster in the living room.

Fuck.

He stared pointedly at the spot where the leaves had moved, just a little, just about small enough for Ayan to have brushed off as an act of the wind had the rest of the yard not been as still as death.

"...Ayan?"

Oh.

He was still on the line with Jeetu, he'd forgotten.

He was about to reply, about to tell Jeetu it was nothing, when the leaves rustled again, and this time, they were a good five feet off the ground, too high to be caused by an animal.

Ayan’s heart began racing.

He swallowed hard, hoping to calm it down a little, just a little, it was beating hard enough and fast enough for him to hear it in his head and feel it in his fingertips, and Ayan Ranjan did not like feeling scared.

Fear was inconvenient. A metaphoric blurred lense over Ayan's otherwise quick thinking and he preferred not to have any part in it if he could help it.

And yet, here he was, palms sweating and throat rapidly running dry.

"I have to go," he said quietly, hoping the man behind the thicket wouldn't hear him. It came out rushed in a way that was entirely unlike his stoic, cool headed nature and Jeetu picked up on it. 

Of course he did.

He always would. 

But he brushed it off. 

It was unlike Ayan, yes, but yelling in sheer rage was more unlike Jeetu and that was all he had been doing over the past ten minutes, it would seem.

"Ayan, we aren't done here-" Jeetu frowned, unaware that his words were falling on inattentive ears.

Ayan blinked.

And swallowed.

And slowly lowered his phone, too panic stricken to risk making any sudden movements.

He saw eyes.

Those were eyes, he was sure, eyes that belonged to someone standing outside his window, someone who was staring right at Ayan through a gap in between the leaves.

Ayan hastily shoved his phone in his back pocket, forgetting to turn it off or cut the call in the haze of panic rushing through his every vein. Someone was hiding outside, and they were staring at him, and he was woefully, dangerously unarmed. 

The phone wasn’t the foremost thing on his mind, just then.

In that moment, all Ayan could think of or care to focus on was getting himself to the safety of his living room, to feel the cold, reassuring metal of his gun under his fingers and slip his index under the trigger. Safe in the knowledge that he was no longer defenseless

“Ayan- AYAN-”

He didn’t hear Jeetu’s voice over the blood rushing in his ears.

Ayan got up, walked casually over towards the living room like he didn't even know the man was there, but he was the very picture of vulnerability, just standing there in front of the window like that- instinct took over his better senses, and he quickened his pace.

As soon as he did, came the first shot.

A shot which would have caught him in the arm, maybe his lung, had he been a mere second slower.

The second shot followed soon after, missing his head narrowly this time. Ayan ducked away from the bullet now embedded in his wall, nearly losing balance in the process. In the half second he took to steady himself, he let himself be thankful it didn’t get him, really, from what he'd seen in his long years of being an officer, being shot in the head didn't make for a very pleasant looking body.

The man was running now. 

Towards him.

Ayan didn't have the fucking time to catch his breath, let alone turn around and see the armed man bolt towards him at an alarming fucking speed, like he intended to get up close and personal before painting the wall with Ayan’s blood. All he caught was a glimpse from his peripheral vision- he saw the man climbing through his open window (stupid, stupid, why the fuck had he left it open-), gun raised and pointed right at Ayan with an intent to kill.

He turned around.

There was a bullet aimed straight at his chest.

_ Old school, I see. _

Ayan watched with widened eyes as the man came closer and closer, pulled the trigger, and-

Stumbled on the area where the carpet had, by some sort of divine intervention, come loose underneath his feet.

And lost his aim.

The bullet meant for Ayan’s heart found his leg, buried itself deep into his thigh.

He didn’t feel it. 

Didn't feel the bullet going in- not for a good second or so.

Ayan blinked, staring at the intruder with an expression almost comically offended

And let himself be taken over by the overwhelming relief of realising he was still alive.

Short lived relief, however.

Because then it came.

All At once, all too fucking much, like the dam gates in his head had been opened and let pure, unadulterated fucking agony rush forth and drown him.

The heat came first. Searing, intense, comparable to virtually nothing he had felt before. His thigh felt like it was on fire, like the inside of his thigh where the bullet had ripped through muscle and flesh was ablaze.

Then came the blinding pain. Racing up his spine in wave upon wave of torment, leaving his heart racing and pounding all and his insides distorted beyond all possibility.

He fought the urge to vomit. 

That could probably wait until after this homicidal bastard had been dealt with

Ayan’s leg gave in to the wound.

He fell hard, ungracefully, landed square on the pocket that held his phone.

He didn't hear Jeetu's screaming get cut off abruptly. Not over the steady ringing that overwhelmed his ears, not over the bloodcurdling shriek of pain that erupted from his own chest, against his conscious knowledge.

Ayan didn't let himself look down at his leg. Didn't let himself eye the blood pooling around him rapidly- his own blood, from inside his own body, fucking hell- he simply let adrenaline take over and shield him from the danger of being incapacitated- Ayan grit his teeth and swallowed back the pulsating in his entire fucking leg as he blindly reached up above the table he'd fallen beside.

The relief he felt when his hand wrapped around the familiar shape of his gun was nigh incomparable to anything he'd felt his entire life.

All it took was one expert swing of his arm in the right direction, one experience seasoned aim and a near instinctual pulling of the trigger…

...Before the man was crumpling to the ground.

He didn’t waver.

The tension in his shoulder, his arm, his- fucking hell, everywhere, made it impossible for him to do much more than simply keep his slightly unsteady aim on the man.

Ayan kept his gun stubbornly trained on the now limp form, watching the blood pooling around him, through wide, terror stricken eyes and heavy, desperate breaths.

He waited for a movement, anything, any excuse for him to pull the trigger again like his adrenaline heavy fingers were itching to do.

The man lay motionless.

Ayan swallowed, blinked hard against the sweat collecting on his tense forehead, but didn’t once dare to avert his eyes from the man on his floor. Not even after the rise and fall of the man’s chest, which had gotten slower and slower with each passing second, had long since stopped.

His arm still stayed pointed at him.

One could never be too sure.

It was only after a minute (that felt like an eternity), that his nerves calmed enough to let his arm drop by his side

Ayan nervously looked around for the gun that had nearly spelled his end- he couldn’t take the risk of the weapon lying within this asshole’s reach- groaning inwardly when he finally spotted it.

The man’s gun was still in his hand.

Finger still firmly placed on the trigger.

Ayan’s breath caught in his throat

If he had been too late, even a microscopic fucking second too late, he-

No.

No, no point dwelling over that.

It was over.

It was over. The most frightening minute of his life was over, and he had come out of it alive. Ayan had lived. That was all that mattered. 

He was alive. 

And breathing. 

He shifted his good leg, grimacing when his foot touched rapidly cooling blood. 

The same probably couldn’t be said about this kind stranger.

Ayan wasn’t really sure what he had aimed for, he’d merely pulled the trigger through a haze of panic and adrenaline, not really caring where it hit as long as it fucked up the guy’s aim and bought Ayan a little more time, just half a moment more to aim his own shot right. The bullet had landed somewhere in the man’s chest, that was all Ayan knew. Apparently, that had been enough. The stream of red slowly and steadily staining Ayan's cashmere carpet was proof enough of that.

It was over.

Ayan let out a shuddering gasp, laced with a pained wince, collapsed bonelessly onto his back and let his arm fall away from him.

It was over.

He was alive.

He was breathing.

It was over.

Ayan tried to move, only to clench his knuckles until they turned white when his leg fucking seemed to be burning alive from the inside.

Ayan raised his head, just a little, just enough to see-

Oh. Oh god, fuck.

The circle of red forming around him was just as big as the other man’s if not horrifyingly bigger.

Fuck. fuck fuck fuck 

there was already a fucking litre of it on the floor, easy- his blood, his blood which was supposed to be inside his body, pooling around him and soaking into the carpet.

His blood.

A truly horrific, disturbing spectacle, if he were being honest.

Ayan felt his vision swim.

He couldn’t stop his stomach from emptying itself.

Right then. Right there.

He pushed himself up on his elbow, careful not to jostle his damaged leg too much, and leaned over to the side, just as his oesophagus gave in to the steady pressure it had been fighting for a good few minutes now. He waited, prayed, begged for it to fucking stop and let him deal with the very pressing problem at hand, but his body seemed to be hell bent on emptying itself until it was a hollow husk in every possible way. While all Ayan could really, realistically do was look on helplessly. And probably watch himself die.

Fun.

He retched weakly again, having nothing really left to give. Ayan didn’t have it in him to hold back the painful cough that left his irritated, burning throat.

He pleaded to- anybody who would listen, he wasn’t picky with his higher powers- for it to fucking stop.

It didn’t.

Ayan felt like his digestive system was wringing itself bone dry.

The warm tears that ran down his cheeks didn’t make matters better.

Finally, finally, after what felt like an eternity, after it felt like there was more blood around him than still in him, the heaving stopped. Ayan blinked away the darkness in the corner of his vision, shook his head in a pointless attempt to shake the rapidly descending dizziness away, and let his overworked, stunned mind decide his next move for him.

Ah. Right.

He probably ought to try… not bleeding to death

He let go of his gun (he wasn’t even aware he was still holding it, but apparently he was. Hard enough for his knuckles to turn deathly pale and his wrist to shake with effort) to reach into his pocket, pull his phone out and probably call someone to come get him before his body gave into the sweet release of nothingness it was rapidly heading for. 

Getting the already present bloodstains out would be hard enough, Ayan didn't think he was doing the poor chump who would be forced to clean this up much of a favour by adding a body to the mess.

Ayan grit his teeth against the… everything, really, and held his thumb on the power button on his phone.

And waited for it to turn on.

With time he didn’t really have.

It didn’t, not after a minute, not even after two.

Ayan’s mouth was beginning to feel like it was stuffed with cotton. His throat felt uncomfortably dry, his tongue suddenly felt alien in his mouth, and-

His head was spinning.

_ Make it stop. _

He took a feverish, unwilling glance at the blank screen.

Oh, wonderful.

His phone wouldn't turn on.

Ayan laughed, dark and humourless and somewhat of a breathless, strained wheeze. Of course it wouldn’t turn on. Why did anything have to go his way, really? Why the fuck should he be allowed any sort of escape from these hellish moments. Which were probably going to be his last, too.

Lovely way to go.

The hollow laugh turned halfway into a sob, and Ayan was struck with an innocent, almost childish realisation that felt almost too heavy to carry for him, in that moment of terror and weakness.

He didn’t want to die.

He was so young. It wasn’t fair.

He didn’t fucking want to die. Please.

_ Please. _

Ayan’s unsteady, tremorous hand seemed to move on autopilot. He tried again, pressing his whitening thumb even harder into the power button, as thought that might just do the trick. Ayan stared hopefully at the blank emptiness of the screen, seeing nothing but his own frightened, worryingly unfocused gaze reflected back at him.

Still nothing.

The dying man in the screen stared helplessly at him, as though wordlessly begging Ayan to fucking do something with his rapidly dwindling time before it was too late. He bit down, hard, on his trembling lower lip, holding back a whimper, or a sob or a scream- he didn’t know anymore, wasn’t in control of himself in the slightest- and took one last, longing glance at what was supposed to be his saviour.

It was then, and only then did he let himself acknowledge the ugly crack that ran along his phone’s length.

He didn’t know how he had missed it, up until that moment. Maybe his traumatised psyche was just too delirious, too clouded by fear to register something as glaringly obvious as a broken mobile phone.

Ayan blinked slowly. A fresh wave of tears took their place in his now red eyes, threatening to spill over.

He felt so helpless.

Lost. 

And a tiny bit pathetic, if he were being honest.

Maybe this was it. This was how it was to end.

With him, dead at the young, unfairly young age of 28. Miles, miles away from home. On an uncomfortably, frustratingly scratchy carpet, lying in his own blood and the contents of his stomach next to him. 

Alone. 

Nobody he loved by his side, to comfort him as he passed.

Nobody to keep him company towards the end of his life but the dying, possibly already dead son of a bitch who took Ayan’s life.

This was just… all sorts and shades of simply fucking unfair.

A lonely, sad fucking death that nobody would wish on their worst enemy.

And for what? Revenge?

Revenge, that Ayan dared to make a difference?

He sighed.

This wasn’t very fair, no.

Whatever happened to “you give what you get?”

Ayan could see the headlines already. 

“IPS officer shot to death in his own home, bleeds out on expensive floor carpet because he decided to spend his last moments crying like a goddamn baby instead of trying to save his own damn life.”

The idea of a headline such as that, though undeniably insane, and perhaps a little mean, brought a smile to Ayan’s cold, expressionless face. It probably shouldn’t have, but there were a lot of things horribly wrong in that moment, and Ayan’s questionable sense of humour in the few moments he had left, before his heart beat its last, was the least of his concerns.

Ayan let his head loll back, tired and limp.

And gave in. 

Gave up. 

Whatever it were. He wasn’t in the mood to weigh each phrase and see which sounded more right. 

He didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. He was growing weaker and weaker by the second, he could fucking feel his life dwindling out of him- a simple breath was taking effort at this point.

He really was going to die here.

Not even shot on duty. At least that had an air of prestige and honour attached to it. Ayan was to die at home, with his hair unkempt and in his fucking white wooly sweater and faded sweatpants, because some dick had a bone to pick with him and decided to take direct action over it.

He was going to die here.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

He was going to die here.

He was going to die here.

He was going to die-

Ayan felt his throat constrict, though his eyes had long since run out of the ability to produce tears. He let out a shuddering, meek breath, and let his thoughts drift to what he would be leaving behind.

There were people who would miss him.

Several, in fact.

Ma would be heartbroken. But she was always a strong woman. She would find the strength to move on. Find someone else to send good morning whatsapp wishes to. Granted, Ayan was their only child, so his death would probably be emotionally devastating than his tired mind would let him comprehend.

But they would move on.

Papa wouldn’t cry at first, he never really did. But Ayan had always been able to tell, even from a young age, that the stoic, tear free face his father showed to the world hid a thunderstorm behind it.

He wished he could be there to comfort his parents.

And then there were the friends he made over the years, over his training years and his time in the USA and his rich, far-from-lonely childhood. They would be sad too.

“Sorry,” Ayan whispered feebly into the silence.

He scoffed at his own action. Like any of them could hear him.

And then, of course, there was...

Oh, fuck.

Ayan blinked one, twice, thrice, waited for the full force of his unfinished thought to hit him. Hard. He twisted his fingers into the sweater that wasn’t really his, feeling an undoable knot take its place in his chest.

Jeetu.

His snarky, larger than life, fiercely loving Jeetu.

Fuck.  _ Fuck. _

He would be-

Ayan couldn’t even imagine what he would be putting the man he loved through.

This wasn’t fair to him either.

A mere six months apart had nearly knocked that radiant, handsome smile clean off his face.

Ayan’s death would break him

_...Sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. _

Ayan knew better than anyone that Jeetu was strong. He’d been through crippling loss before, there were still nights, nearly a decade later, when he would talk to Ayan about the best friend he’d lost with a stony look in his eyes.

He knew how grief worked. All too well.

But this was different.

This was Ayan. This was the man he had slow danced in the kitchen with at 2:00 am, just because, with no music to guide their clumsy, sleepy steps. This was the man who knew Ayan’s every little secret  _ (nearly _ , Ayan reminded himself.  _ Nearly  _ every secret, some he still wasn’t ready to show), right from ugly to amusing, just as he knew Jeetu’s.

Jeetu would move on. Of course he would, there were better people than Ayan who would do right by him, give him the love he deserved. He would find one of them. He would be okay. Even better than he is now, maybe.

Ayan’s unconvincing half smile betrayed his despondence.

He hadn’t done right by Jeetu. At all.

And now he would leave. Forever. With their last conversation having been a fight.

_...how romantic. _

Ayan let his fingers find his damp hair, exhaling nervously through his mouth.

Jeetu would find brightness again, Ayan felt it in every fibre of his being that he would. 

But that eventual light was still at the end of a long, dark tunnel he would have to go through alone.

Because of Ayan.

That was how the woefully short tale of two mismatched, yet inexplicably perfect lovers was going to end.

Ayan closed his eyes.

And breathed.

Slow, barely there breaths from a man who no longer had any fight left in him.

Ayan wanted to sleep.

It was about time too.

He’d had a good life, right? Short, but he made his mark in the world. He was happy enough. He had love in his life. Letting go wouldn't be the worst idea.

He let his hand fall away from his hair, limp and lifeless and tragic.

Ayan allowed the edges of his vision to go dark, released the tension in his limbs, and let his eyes slip close for one last time-

When he was very rudely interrupted by the sound of a ringtone, coming from dead (?) man’s pocket.

_ Can’t even fucking die in peace. _

It took Ayan a second of staring.

And then a second longer.

But eventually, the reality of what that ringtone meant hit him all at once, and he would’ve cried tears of unbridled joy and relief and a million other wonderful things if he were capable of it. For now, though, all he could manage was a soft little clap of happiness, the likes of which he was being bombarded with for the first time in his entire life.

It was, ironically (given the less than ideal situation he was in) his happiest moment yet.

Ayan used his sudden, one-last-try burst of strength to pull himself, exhausted and loose limbed and hurting so, so bad, towards the source of that beautiful, amazing, angelic ringtone that was going to save his fucking life.

His leg screamed in protest.

Ayan ignored it.

It was when he got where he wanted to be, however, that he was struck by a realisation.

The kind that Ayan didn’t have words for.

The kind that left him gutted. And furious. And more terrified than ever.

The kind that made him want to take his gun and fucking off himself right in that moment.

The man was lying on his phone.

And Ayan had barely been able to pull himself forward four feet, let alone roll a motionless, uncooperative body on the heavier side onto its back.

He couldn’t help the quiet, deranged laughter that escaped him.

All Ayan could do was laugh, really.

Laugh at himself, and this horrifically hilarious predicament he’d found himself in for no fault of his own.

He tried anyway, ever the fighter. The exhausted man pushed a hopeful, waxy pale arm under the body, ignoring the red that he could feel coating his hands with much difficulty. Ayan rooted around in the limited space, hoping blindly to have his fingers happen upon the hard edge of a phone.

All he found was disappointment.

Ayan chuckled, letting his body drop to the ground, hand still stuck under the man in an awkward, slightly painful position he was too exhausted to correct

He was tired 

He was so, so tired

There was a call he could have made. An ambulance he could have called, if he’d just thought of borrowing this gentleman’s phone a little earlier, when he still had the strength to roll him over. 

He knew. And it hurt.

But he was so tired.

And nauseated, somehow. It wasn’t like he had anything left to hold in honestly. He wished he hadn't taken Jeetu's advice to try eating early just that night.

_ I’m sorry, Jeetu. _

It didn’t have to come to this.

He could’ve lived.

Maybe, there was still a chance. Maybe, he could conjure up some hidden strength and get to the damn phone.

He didn’t want to, though.

Ayan was tired.

So, so tired.

It was sorrowfully poetic, really, how in the end, the cause of Ayan's death was Ayan himself.

He let his eyes slide shut.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HES ALIVE I PROMISE


	5. There Was A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...None of that went according to plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOO FLASHBACK TIME >:D
> 
> im uploading two chapters today to thank yall for waiting. Enjoy :)

**21st June, 2018, 6:45 pm:**

His hand stilled on the locked doorknob.

Ayan let his fingers rest, there, for a moment. He didn't know why, didn't know what it was that made him stop and reconsider leaving for the night. Perhaps it was the utterly dull idea of returning to his empty, lifeless apartment. Plain, simple old boredom. Perhaps he was tired, needed a moment to sit and catch his breath, after… all that. Or he truly, genuinely had nowhere better to be than that darkened, silent classroom. 

Probably a bit off all three, truth be told.

Whatever it was, he let his hand drop from the knob, his gaze shifting indecisively from poster to poster that adorned the faded walls. His eyes caught on a particularly off-putting one, making him raise his eyebrows in an odd mixture of horror and amusement. 

“No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder,” Ayan read out loud, barely managing to hold back a chuckle.

“Bit harsh, don’t you think?”

The man Ayan was addressing looked at him half-heartedly, then at the poster, then back down at the buttons he was still doing up. 

Jeetu always seemed to take an oddly long time to dress himself. 

Usually, Ayan would be all set to leave- shirt buttoned up, pants in place, even his collar readjusted to unsuspicious, unquestinable normalcy- while Jeetu was still slipping an unhurried arm through a wrinkled Peter England shirt.

Tonight was no different.

Ayan watched, comfortably silent as Jeetu now fidgeted with his mussed collar, trying to smooth it down in a way that didn’t make it seem like his shirt had been discarded quite clumsily behind his desk. It was an amusing sight, really, watching this veritable genius of a man battle with a piece of clothing that simply refused to fold itself back down correctly.

“Bhench- why won’t it just-”

God, this was entertaining.

Ayan would have offered to fix it for him, he really would have. He could have, too. considering he knew very well exactly what the problem was- a tiny flap in the back where it was still upturned, positioned _ oh so perfectly _ so Jeetu wouldn’t realise.

But this was fun.

Jeetu sighed _ (“fuck’s sake-”) _ , gave up with a frustrated huff, and deposited himself rather bonelessly into his chair with the expression of a defeated man. 

It was late, anyway, who cared if he walked out of an empty classroom looking like he’d just escaped an attempted kidnapping.

If there was anyone even around the campus at this hour. What was it, 8:00?

His rolex said 7:34 pm.

…They’d been in here a while.

Apparently, a windowless classroom door locked from the inside for over an hour had raised no questions.

Just as well.

The table in here was far wider, and far less cluttered than the one in his office, anyway. And they’d been interrupted exactly zero times, a whole 2 times less than their average. Perhaps a change of venue  _ was  _ in order.

“Let me guess,” Ayan spoke up again, interrupting jeetu in the middle of a very enticing idea of permanently declaring this classroom as his territory, putting up a sign that said “DR TRIPATHI- OFFICE 2” and effectively taking over. Funny thing was, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for it to work out. People loved him enough to let that slide. 

He wondered, at times, why he’d been given this much power. 

And also why he didn’t take advantage of it more often.

He really ought to.

Jeetu looked back at Ayan, noting how the crimson beams from the decade old lamp outside painted rather beautiful a picture of his brilliant eyes, the gentle raise of his cheekbones, the graceful curve of his jaw.

Ayan stayed oblivious to Jeetu’s enraptured gaze. He frowned lightly, eyeing the offensive poster with mild annoyance, his attention having effectively moved on from Jeetu’s plight with semi formal menswear.

“This poster-” Ayan raised an eyebrow,

“-your doing?”

Jeetu blinked.

“What?”

“This, uh, sad attempt at motivation.”

Jeetu followed Ayan’s disapproving gaze to what appeared to be a brand new poster, standing comically vibrant in sharp contrast with the faded white paint and the blue ink graffiti it was positively surrounded by. A grating thing to behold, really. An ugly rectangle of bright red, with words written over it in off white, blocky text. 

It got on Jeetu’s nerves, for reasons he decided he would rather not dwell on. It had something to do with his vitriolic loathing for motivational posters, he was sure. But he left it at that.

And that was even before he read the damn text.

_ No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder. _

Jeetu scowled.

“What the fuck is this?”

Ayan eyed him with confusion.

“Your valuable contribution to the aesthetics of this room, I’m assuming?”

The gaze he was met with was downright murderous.

And somewhat sexy. Sue him.

“How,” Jeetu enunciated,

“ _ fucking _ dare you.”

The other man laughed quietly, taking a very slow, very deliberate step towards Jeetu. He stood right beside the window now, and jeetu had to admit the street lights amidst the evening sky did Ayan’s already rugged features _ quite _ a favour. The dim lighting gave his eyes a sort of severity Jeetu couldn’t find in anyone else’s, the warm tones seemed to highlight every muscle in his neck, and his handcuffs glinting by his thigh were just... inexplicably, unreasonably alluring against the silhouetted uniform Jeetu was only all too pleased to see him in.

And out of.

He made a mental note to postpone their… escapades, to later in the night, from now on.

Darkness was a good look on this man.

“I don’t know,” Ayan chuckled. “Feels like something you would say.”

Jeetu stilled.

Clenched his fist.

And counted to ten before he threw something at the gorgeous blockhead smiling innocently at him.

Ayan could not have been more wrong if he had  _ tried. _

That poster was everything jeetu stood against.

First, the colour was terrible and stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise dull room. Jeetu had an eye for interiors, and this poster was an abomination to his creative senses. He would sooner paint this room fluorescent green and cover the walls with garish star stickers than put that up.

Second, the entire idea of motivational posters was a personal offense to him in and of itself. Jeetu couldn’t fucking stand the damn things, brought back less than pleasant memories of a time he would have a quiet breakdown in his room, surrounded by nothing but mountains of study material and fucking pieces of paper on the walls telling him to never give up, or something. 

Bullshit. That was all it was.

Jeetu _ always _ gave up.

Every damn night, he gave up.

Every damn time he spent hours upon hours seated against his will in a small, overwhelming room, every damn time his parents cancelled his plans without asking, or told what few friends he had _ (the few who tolerated him) _ that he didn’t want them around anymore, he gave up. Every time he shook quietly with his hand clamped tight over his mouth  _ (crying was weak, crying meant he was ungrateful for all they were doing for him, crying was cowardly, unmanly-),  _ Jeetu gave up.

And then he got up the next morning, only to do it all over again.

Those shitty posters were the only kind he had been allowed in his room.

He ended up associating them with those two hellish years, now.

So he hated them.

And finally, of course, came the message itself.

“It’s…”

Jeetu bit his lip and tilted his head, as though trying to find an angle from which the poster looked somewhat palatable.

He found none.

The poster was trash from every angle.

“...not my style,” Jeetu finished uneasily.

Ayan frowned.

“I thought motivation was kinda your  _ thing _ -”

Jeetu smiled at that, and it was the kind of smile that should have made Ayan feel small, or stupid, or both, but somehow even mild condescension seemed warm coming from him.

Ayan wondered how he did it.

“Not this sort, Ayan.”

“...Elaborate?”

Ayan watched Jeetu blink once, twice, as though struggling internally with indecision. Jeetu let out a wary breath in the form of a tired, drawn out sigh, fixed his gaze on an entirely arbitrary nail sticking out of one of the desks, and squared his jaw.

Ayan almost considered taking the question back. 

He wasn’t sure, really, not just yet, but signs pointed pretty evidently to his accidentally stumbling upon a touchy subject. 

“Unless, of course, you don’t want to, that’s fine t-”

“It’s bullshit.”

Ayan blinked.

“What?”

He gestured vaguely towards the poster that seemed to have miraculously found its way into Jeetu Bhaiya’s bad books.

“That.”

Jeetu shrugged.

“I mean, I get the intention behind it, I really do, but I… Really can’t get myself to appreciate what the poster is trying to say.”

Ayan simply raised his eyebrows, wordlessly inviting the other man to go on.

Jeetu chuckled.

“Okay, maybe it’s just my personal bias against motivational posters-”

Ayan made a mental note to ask about that later.

“-but this one, just… Read it again. Look at what it’s trying to tell you.”

Ayan turned back to the poster.

_ No matter how hard you work, someone else is working harder. _

He couldn’t see anything beyond the obvious. Ayan didn’t see anything wrong with it, really, he had only jokingly called it harsh, because Ayan had intentionally read it wrong as the poster telling everyone who read it that they were slight wastes of space who would never measure up to this abstract “someone.”

“Uh… To work harder?”

Jeetu nodded.

“And that’s because…?”

Ayan frowned. It was like he was back in english class again, hopelessly analysing a poem for the second meaning everyone but for him seemed to get. Times like those had been especially humiliating to Ayan, because he often prided himself on his ability to see details that others often missed. To read between the lines, to see what isn’t shown.

It was extra humiliating now, because this was Jeetu, and Ayan sort of didn’t want Jeetu to think he’s stupid.

He squinted, as though that would help.

It didn’t.

“Because… there’s a lot of competition out there?”

Jeetu shook his head, with a small smile.

“Yes, but there’s more to it. Try again.”

_...Fuck. _

_ Alright, Ranjan, you can do this. _

Ayan fixed his gaze back on the ugly font, frustration evident in the crease of his eyebrows as he did so. It wasn’t even about not looking stupid, anymore, Ayan was genuinely curious about what Jeetu could see in this innocuous poster that he couldn’t, what hidden message good have affronted this man this badly-

Oh.

_...Oh. _

“It’s saying... whatever you do will never be enough?” He couldn’t help but add the slight questioning tone, just in case he turned out to be wrong. Jeetu’s answering grin, however, told Ayan well enough that his fear had been unfounded.

“Precisely.”

Ayan let a small smile sneak onto his face.

“It’s saying,” Jeetu continued, “that it doesn’t matter how hard you work, doesn’t matter how much effort you put into something. It won’t be enough, never will be. Because there’s apparently some nameless entity out there who’s working harder.”

Ayan thought of a particularly terrible joke about how this entity seemed to be named  _ “someone,”  _ according to the poster, but he decided that was a little too bad even for him.

“And at the face of it, that’s a good thing, right? You can’t do enough hard work, all that. But-”

Jeetu trailed off. Ayan caught him biting his lip again.

Something he did when he was thinking something unpleasant, Ayan observed.

“It’s not. It’s not… necessarily a good thing.”

Ayan nodded absently.

But he said nothing.

He had to disagree, if he were being honest. What Jeetu was saying made sense for… natural, inborn ability. Talents, if you will. Not hard work. Not effort. Everyone was equally capable of that, the poster wasn’t necessarily saying anything wrong, was it?

It was, as he would soon find out.

“I’ve taught all sorts of students, over...5 years, now. Some more talented than others, some who found it easier to study for hours on end than others, some who didn’t have either. Some who just… Couldn’t work as hard as the others, even if they tried their hardest. But almost all of them were doing their best, Ayan. I know they were.”

He fiddled with the loose thread at the end of his sweater, gaining sudden interest in that damn nail again.

Ayan didn’t know what to make of this.

He’d never seen Jeetu like this. 

He didn’t even know what “this” was, really, and yes, granted they had only been… in this  _ arrangement _ for a month, now, but he’d never seen Jeetu this sombre before. 

“People just work differently. It’s meaningless to compare them. A lot of kids who come here aren’t even here of their own accord. You can’t expect someone who isn’t here of their own free will to work as hard as someone who is. But that kid would be doing their best too, you know?”

Ayan was starting to see what Jeetu meant.

Jeetu scoffed, humourless.

“That’s why, I don’t know, I feel like that poster is a huge hit and a miss. What does comparing your amount of work to someone else’s even do? You either end up panicking because you’re apparently not doing enough, or you end up complacent because you’re  doing more than someone else, and that could turn dangerous too. Just- I don’t like the idea of working based off how much someone else is doing. Why compare? Why do you have to be the best?”

Their eyes met, for a second, just a brief second, and it was in that moment that Ayan understood it all.

“Such an… odd fixation, this whole world has with being the best, nahi?”

Ayan nodded.

He knew that feeling only all too well.

“Like… it’s not enough to do your best. You have to be _ the _ best. Among everyone. And that’s what this poster is sort of saying, isn’t it? Doesn't matter if you’re working as hard as you can. Someone else is out there, doing better, working harder. So what you’re doing isn't as worth being proud of as you think. Even if it’s the most you can do.”

“And,” Ayan piped up out of nowhere, much to Jeetu’s pleasant surprise,“if you  _ are _ the best- the most hardworking, whatever- going by what this poster says, some other son of a bitch is just gonna show up and outperform you. It’s literally a no win situation.”

Jeetu positively beamed at that.

Ayan let it go straight to his ego. 

“EXACTLY!” jeetu nodded enthusiastically, “it’s stupid, ayan. It’s stupid to try and be the best. Or the most hardworking, or the most… whatever. The most anyone can do is do their best. And it’s unfair to expect literally anything more.”

The tapping that suddenly invaded Ayan’s hearing was confusing at first. Then, he looked down at the table, and realised it was the insistent tapping of Jeetu’s fingers against the wooden tabletop.

He seemed nervous.

Ayan eyed him carefully.

“I’ve been-” Jeetu shook his head.

“I’ve fed that garbage enough, far too much, honestly-”

_ ( “JEE First rank, or at least top ten. It’s the least you owe us” _

_ “Do you really want to rank lower than-” _

_ “Can’t be the best? So you’ve decided? You’ve chosen mediocrity?” _

_ “This is embarrassing, Jeetu” _

_ “Are you giving up on yourself, then? Won’t bother trying harder?”) _

Jeetu blinked the memories away.

“I mean, I still struggle with it, sometimes. To this day. Not a chance in hell I'm letting a single student of mine internalise that.”

“Mm,” Ayan replied nonchalantly, head swimming far too much with the new perspective Jeetu had just given him to manage much more than that.

Jeetu didn’t mind the non response.

He barely registered it, really. Jeetu’s expression betrayed that he was lost deep in thought, though Ayan couldn’t for the life of him figure out if they were good or bad. All he could see was that Jeetu was lost to the world around him, ocean deep in some crevice of his own mind. Ayan stared at him for a second or two, and realised when Jeetu didn’t blink for 10 seconds straight that it was probably time Ayan went home, and left Jeetu to it. Didn’t seem like Ayan would get much conversation out of him any time soon.

He turned towards the door, fully intending to make his way towards the exit and leave Jeetu for the night. Some small, odd little part of him was still against the notion (probably because Jeetu was the closest thing to a real friend he’d had in a long time, yes, that had to be it), but it was small enough for him to ignore and make his way out. Ayan didn’t want to be overbearing.

Jeetu saw Ayan get up to go, and some small, odd little part of him wished he wouldn’t (Jeetu knew exactly what that part was, he just didn’t want to put a name to it, names made things real), but he said nothing. Did nothing. His mind was still elsewhere, roving over a million different things.

The other man stood up, and turned around.

Jeetu’s eyes found their new target of attention immediately.

Those uniform pants were a  _ real  _ good look on him.

Ayan took a step or two in his intended direction, completely oblivious to the very pointed gaze directed at certain parts of him, and then-

And then he saw it.

A big ugly roach, smack in the middle of the doorknob, luxuriating there like it had found its place in this world and didn’t intend to move.

Ayan blinked.

Yeah. He would be here a little while longer. 

Not a chance in hell he was going anywhere near that. Officer Ayan Ranjan may be a gun carrying police officer, intimidating at the drop of a hat (Jeetu disagreed, but Jeetu was wrong, so whatever), Ayan may have faced up to truly despicable and dangerous people before. But he drew the line at the six legged monstrosity blocking his way to freedom at that moment.

Goddamnit.

And he couldn’t just stand there and wait, or just turn back around and occupy his place in one of the seats, either, Jeetu would know immediately that something was up and then Ayan would have to explain why. Or he could give some excuse, or guilt trip him for asking that question, or something. But this was Jeetu. 

Not a chance in hell he wouldn’t see right through it.

And Ayan would sooner die than ever admit to fearing a measly little insect.

Ayan frowned, trying to think of a way out.

_ Wait. _

_ Ah. Genius. _

“Jeetu?”

“Hm?”

_ Here we go. _

“You’re not… scared of anything, are you?”

Ayan smiled deviously, evidently and rightfully pleased with his sudden moment of brilliance.

This was perfect. This was probably one of the best ideas Ayan had ever had, and he’d had quite a few, honestly. No matter what others seemed to insist.

He was going to play Jeetu’s ego like a fiddle.

There were two possibilities here. Jeetu would say no, because of _ course  _ he would. Jeetu Bhaiya wasn’t supposed to fear anything, he just didn’t.

Now, either he would be telling the truth, and Ayan would make him get rid of the offending insect just to prove that.

Or, Jeetu would be lying, and he would have to get rid of the damn thing anyway to preserve his own dignity.

_ Perfect. _

Jeetu’s eyes shot up, body tensing microscopically like he’d been ever so slightly electrocuted. 

_ What the hell brought that question on? _

He stared at Ayan, trying to make sense of why he would ask something even remotely as heavy as that. Out of the blue, after the obvious end of an entirely unrelated conversation. That too, when he was just about to leave.

Granted, they were friends, and friends did talk about... things like this, from time to time. But considering the time, and place, and the atmosphere of the room, and the fact that Ayan was clearly about to  _ leave _ \- Jeetu decided he had every right to feel as thrown as he did. Questions like that required a steady build up, and a bit of a warning, thank you. Not thrown at his face with all the suddenness of a gunshot.

He wasn’t expecting that, yes, but  _ especially _ not from Ayan, who seemed to pointedly avoid conversations like this one. Not that Jeetu minded his very unsubtle avoidance, really, his interest in Ayan had been born of reasons wildly, hilariously different from anything remotely emotional. He didn’t need to know this man. He didn’t need this man to know him, either.

So it threw him.

Of course it did.

Ayan kept his back to Jeetu, eyes fixated on the doorknob to make sure the creature from hell didn’t come any closer to him. Which is why he missed the bewildered frown on Jeetu’s face, the uncertain blinking and the slightly shaken stare.

Jeetu considered playing it off, of making a joke and moving on to the next topic of conversation _ (or of leaving himself. This wasn’t even his office, why was he still here?).  _ Maybe saying he was late for dinner plans, or a doctor’s appointment _ (wait, no, that would just invite more questions). _ Or saying he had an unacademy session to record tonight, and booting it immediately, but… 

He wanted to answer this.

He didn’t know why, but he did.

Ayan smirked, waiting patiently and confidently for the “nothing” that he was sure would come.

Jeetu sighed.

“...Being alone, I guess.”

Ayan blinked.

_ What? _

_ No- _

He turned around, his expression surprised to a degree that Jeetu couldn’t even begin to explain to himself, so he ignored it. He watched Ayan open his mouth to say something, frown, and then close it back down.

_ Odd. _

_ Maybe he hadn’t been expecting that? _

He was Jeetu Bhaiya, after all. Ayan had probably been expecting something more… palatable, something that sounded so painfully him _ (or at least, like the “him” people could see) _ . Something like “I won’t achieve greatness,” or “I won’t be crowned the smartest most accomplished bestest teacher in the whole entire world” or something to that effect.

That had to be it.

It’s what he _ wanted _ people to expect of him, anyway.

Ayan blinked at him, still unable to form a proper response. This was very different from cockroaches. Very heavy, too, Ayan wasn’t used to being handed very personal information like this, he made damn sure of that. He never knew what to do with it. This time was no different.

Jeetu shrugged.

Jitendra Tripathi had grown up a rather anxious, insecure little boy, gifted mind aside. He had never been a very confident person for a good part of his life, the unshakeable Jeetu Bhaiya people revered and looked up to now had only been a recent development. 

He’d been more or less alone for a large part of his childhood. Always the one who sat alone in class, always the one mocked for his thick glasses and rather skinny stature, bullied simply because he was easy to bully. Shorter than most in his class, too weak to throw a respectable punch back.

And then, of course, realising at the age of 13 with dawning horror that he was… different, to his more heterosexual classmates. And subsequently having to hide that part of himself

He didn’t like the idea of going back there. Realistically, yes, he knew that time was long past and chances of him finding himself isolated against his will were remarkably slim. But he couldn’t bring himself to shake the fear.

Ayan still didn’t say anything.

What could he?

“Call it stupid, but… I’m scared of people leaving, I guess. I mean, it’s happened before… so-”

This was not going according to plan at all.

“It’s- yeah, it’s stupid-”

Ayan wanted to… assure him that it wasn’t or something, but all of this was moving much too fast and much too intensely for him to safely process before being sucker punched with the next sentence Jeetu threw at him.

“I don’t know, it’s the idea that nobody is bound to anyone else, I think. Whoever’s in your life today could just leave tomorrow. Not much stopping them, is there? Not that there should be, but… it’s scary. That they could just wake up one day and decide you aren’t worth their time.”

Jeetu looked up at Ayan’s face, expecting some sort of discernible reaction. Even if he wasn’t really saying anything.

He was met with complete, and utter blankness.

Blankness, because that had hit too close to home. 

Not that Ayan would ever let it show.

Jeetu fidgeted with the grey threads by his waist again.

“Not even necessarily about them… leaving, really,”

He swallowed.

“sometimes people are just taken from you, all of a sudden, and-”

Jeetu looked up at him again.

_ Stop. _

_ Stop, that’s enough. _

_ “ _ I’d prefer not having to go through that again, you know?”

Ayan would hear about the best friend he lost, someday (maybe. Maybe he would. He didn’t have to). But not today. Jeetu wasn’t ready yet. Besides, he’d unloaded enough and more on Ayan already. And out of the blue, too. Granted, Ayan had been the one to ask, but the surprise carefully hidden by his now intentionally, carefully neutral expression (Jeetu could tell) was proof enough that it was about time he stopped.

Ayan nodded, not quite meeting Jeetu’s eyes.

“...Sorry, that was a lot,” Jeetu grimaced.

Ayan twitched, as though snapped back into reality, and while he had kept his gaze focused on Jeetu over the entirety of that conversation, Jeetu felt like Ayan was actually looking at him now. For one thing, his face had regained a bit of its ability to form expressions.

He waved Jeetu’s apology away.

“That- no, that’s okay, I mean, I did ask, so…”

Jeetu hummed half heartedly.

The subsequent silence hung heavily in the room. Ayan thought he ought to say something, anything, that it was his line, now. But his ability to form sentences seemed to be failing him quite spectacularly, all he could do was look at Jeetu with awkwardness seeping into his bones, until it finally got too much and he looked away.

Ayan wanted to leave. Right now. Immediately. And never speak of this evening ever again.

Jeetu eyed him silently, regretting every word that had just come out of his mouth with every goddamn inch of his being. He just wanted to go home, away from Ayan, maybe only speak of this evening again when enough time had passed for it to not be absolutely mortifying to even think of. Which would be a while, really.

He wanted to go home.

Jeetu stood up.

“It’s getting late, and we should probably-”

“Oh. Yeah, yes, we-”

Ayan turned to the door readily, away from Jeetu, grateful and very relieved to have found a good enough reason to get the fuck out of there. The cockroach at the door lay forgotten.

Until he saw it.

Still right there. Not having moved a goddamn inch. Taunting Ayan, almost, poking him with the very unpleasant realisation that perhaps he would have to admit to his single most embarrassing fear after all, if he wanted to get out of there.

_ Fuck’s sake. _

Ayan sighed.

“Cockroaches.”

Jeetu raised an eyebrow.

“...What?”

Ayan turned sideways, and looked back at Jeetu, an embarrassed little smile playing at his lips.

“That’s what I’m scared of.”

Jeetu blinked.

He tilted his head towards the door, bringing Jeetu’s attention to the small, dark figure blocking their exit. He didn’t make it out at first, squinting through the darkness to see what Ayan was on about.

“You’ll have to get rid of that one if we’re going to leave, I’m going nowhere near it”

Jeetu couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

_ “I’d prefer not having to go through that again.” _

That’s what he had said.

That’s what Jeetu had said to Ayan, over a year ago.

And here Ayan was, being the very goddamn reason he would have to face his worst fucking fear. To deal with the crushing weight of loss, all over again.

_ I’m sorry, Jeetu. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay cool but like can we get back to the story now


	6. Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a shot every time you see the the words "this doesn't make sense" or "this isn't real" for instant alcohol poisoning.
> 
> Also, please skip this chapter if you're uncomfortable/triggered by descriptions of dissociation.
> 
> Now, enjoy :)

  
  


"He went home early today, left about an hour ago,” the man said calmly. 

As there was any fucking reason to be calm about that. As if it wasn’t the single most terrifying sentence Jeetu had heard his entire fucking life.

_...Wasn’t it? _

Jeetu didn’t understand it.

He couldn’t.

He knew what the man was saying. He could hear the words, string their meanings together and glean what they meant, but…

He didn’t understand.

They made no sense.

Nothing made sense.

He replayed the words in his head, a feeble attempt at getting them to penetrate.

They didn’t.

_ This didn’t make sense. _

Maybe he had heard that wrong. That had to have been it, he was so tired already, he’d had such a long day. He had to have heard that wrong.

Ayan couldn’t be home.

No.

No, he couldn’t have heard that right.

_ This was wrong.  _

Ayan couldn’t be home, Ayan never, ever left the station early, let alone as early as 6:00. Jeetu would’ve believed it without a second’s hesitation had he been told Ayan spent the night in his office, but his leaving early didn’t come anywhere  _ close  _ to the realm of possibility.

It couldn’t.

He couldn’t be home. 

No.

“He went...” 

Jeetu could feel his mouth running dry.

_ He didn’t. He didn’t.  _ __  
  


_ Say he didn’t. _

“...home?”

The man sighed, again, and Jeetu didn’t hear it over the fog around his senses.

_ This made no sense. _

“Yes, sir, he went home.”

_ No. _

_ He didn’t. _

_ He couldn’t have. _

Jeetu couldn’t believe it. 

He didn’t want to believe it.

Because that would mean Ayan was home alone when the gun was fired. Yes, there was still a chance that the shots weren’t directed at him, but-

Jeetu smiled. It was sardonic. The very picture of pessimism.

_ What the fuck were the chances of that? _

His voice was small when he spoke again. Not trembling, no, but quiet. To the point of being unsettling.

_ Was this even his voice? _

_ His voice didn’t sound like this. _

_ Why did nothing make sense? _

“He usually doesn’t leave so soon,” Jeetu said. 

Sounding amusingly like a petulant child, trying to convince someone older to allow him a later bedtime.

It wasn't a question. He wasn’t asking if what he had heard was right.

It was a fact. 

“He doesn’t leave so soon.”

_ Why did he repeat that? _

“He doesn’t.”

He didn’t have to say it again. Why did he?

_ But it was true, wasn’t it? _

“He doesn’t leave this soon.”

Jeetu felt disoriented. Like he was caught underwater, like his every thought and action had suddenly become slow and sluggish, or the world around him was stuck on fast forward.

He didn’t like it.

_ What’s happening to me? _

Jeetu heard a nervous clearing of a throat coming from the other end of the line, but that was it. It was just silence, save for that.

The officer on the other end didn’t know how to reply. How could he? This stranger seemed to be insisting that a coworker he knew for a fact had gone home (or he had said at much, at least) couldn’t be home at all.

And this man seemed pretty damn insistent, too.

He didn’t know what to say.

Silence was all he could manage.

Jeetu didn’t know what to make of it.

“He doesn’t leave so soon,” Jeetu repeated helplessly, unsure of whether he was trying to convince the officer, or himself.

_ Perhaps, both. _

Ayan never left on time. No matter how many times jeetu had chided him for it, how many times Jeetu had pleaded him to fucking take care of himelf when he wasn’t around to do it, time and time again, only for it to fall on ears too stubborn and blockheaded to just fucking listen to reason.

This one time, he had listened. 

This one time, he had done what Jeetu had asked.

And Jeetu wished with all his heart that he hadn’t.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. It would have been amusing, even, if it hadn’t been so-

_ So what? _

He didn’t think there really was a word for what he was feeling. He was scared, god, there was no questioning that, but it was… muted. He felt oddly confused. A little lost.

It was a good ten seconds before Jeetu realised he hadn’t said a word.

“Why…”

_ God, he was tired. _

“Why did he leave so soon?”

The officer sighed in relief, finally having received a response he could reply to.

“He said he had an important call to make, or something like that- why are you asking?” The man asked, suddenly suspicious. 

Common sense (or so he thought) told him that someone this hell bent on knowing about an officer’s whereabouts, especially in a village where Ayan had made quite a few enemies, probably wasn’t one for innocence.

Jeetu blinked.

“Important… call?”

_ This didn’t make any fucking sense. _

If it was an important call, Ayan would have told him. Hell, he wouldn’t have promised to call Jeetu at the same time. If there was any reason they worked as well as they did  _ (Well?) _ it was because they could keep their career and relationship separate. Ayan wouldn’t jeopardise the one good part of their relationship.

Maybe the call had been over by the time he called Jeetu?

But why wouldn’t he tell Jeetu about it? who was he calling that he couldn’t do it from the station?

_ Why doesn’t this make sense- _

“Yes,” the officer went on.

“He said it’s a personal matter, so he left early.”

...Personal matter?

But he hadn’t said anything about that, either.

What was he hiding?

Why didn’t he just tell-

_...Oh. _

_ Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. _

It  _ was _ Jeetu.

He had gone home because of Jeetu. That was the important call. The one they had, before they were rudely interrupted by someone trying to take Ayan’s life.

He had been home. Alone. With nobody to call for help. 

Because of Jeetu.

Ayan was possibly hurt, or worse, and it was Jeetu’s fault.

_ Again.  _

Jeetu smiled. This was brilliant. 

_ All over fucking again.  _

History seemed hell bent on repeating itself that evening, and Jeetu had been caught right in the middle of it. 

It had been over a decade since he’d lost his best friend to an accident, on the way home to his house. Pranav hadn’t wanted to come over, he’d said he had an assignment to complete, and that it was too dark anyway. And jeetu had insisted that he come.

He’d fucking insisted.

And for what? To lead someone he treasured to their death?

That’s what he had done here too, hadn’t he?

A chuckle escaped him. Dark, unsettling, almost alien in his mouth.

Ayan had gone home so he could talk to Jeetu.

_ His fault. _

_ This was his fault. _

_ His fucking fault. _

Jeetu wanted to laugh.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to hit something. Again, and again, until the tension that had taken hold of every muscle, every tendon in his body left him.

Jeetu rubbed his eyes with a calmness he didn’t remotely feel, feeling the fog around his senses deepen

_ This didn’t make sense. _

_ This didn’t- _

He sagged further into his chair, feeling it bend backwards under his weight. His phone lay deposited haphazardly on his table, right next to the papers he had been grading half heartedly but an hour ago.

Jeetu grit his teeth.

Just as his heartbeat sped up.

And up

And up

While all jeetu could do was sit there, unmoving, while the war waged within.

He sighed, and closed his eyes, trying to will it back down. It was odd. It was so fucking odd, his body seemed disconnected from his mind, he was just sitting there but his heart was racing like he was running a goddamn marathon.

He took a deep breath, and hoped to the moon and back that it would slow down. This was the last thing he needed right now.

It wouldn’t slow down.

Jeetu could’ve sworn it sped up at that.

He felt It was going to explode.

It was going to explode, he fucking knew it was, unless he did something to make it stop. He wanted to, fuck, he wanted to call for help or clutch at something or- anything, for god’s sake, anything, but all Jeetu found himself doing was staring out the window, up at the moon in the night sky.

He swallowed.

It wouldn’t slow down.

He tried breathing again. Slow, deep ones in an attempt to quieten the thudding in his chest.

Once.

Twice.

And then he-

He couldn’t breathe.

_ He couldn’t breathe. _

Aall at once, all at fucking once his breath caught short in his throat, depriving his lungs of oxygen. Or, no, know, that wasn’t it.

Jeetu could breathe.

It just-

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, every fucking intake of air seemed to come up short, every lungful of oxygen just left him wanting more.

It got heavier. More frequent.

He recognised what was happening only all too well, of course he could. He just didn’t know how the fuck to stop it.

His heart still hammered away.

His chest still felt empty.

He still didn’t have it in him to move.

All in all, one of the less pleasant experiences he had had, Jeetu would say.

It was almost too much. Hell, it was too much.

He just wanted it to stop.

He just wanted the drumming in his chest to stop, he just wanted to breathe fucking normally again, he-

_ Make it stop. _

_ Make it stop. _

_ Please make- _

It stopped.

Like someone had turned a lightswitch off.

The panic stopped.

He could breathe again.

His heart rate slowed. All of a sudden. Too fucking sudden, even, Jeetu didn’t nbegin to understand what was happening.

Not that he was complaining, no.

Jeetu blinked, welcoming the sudden emptiness that took over him. 

He felt detached.

Far away, like he was standing outside a window and watching this horror show unfold in front of him.

He looked down at his hand. It had stopped shaking.

It didn’t feel like his. 

What was happening?

_ Is this real? _

“Sir?” 

_ Sir? _

Nobody called him sir.

He hated being called that.

_ Was that even for him? _

“Sir? Are you there?”

Jeetu stared at the phone on the table.

He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Sir? Hello?”

_ Was that even his phone? _

“Sir?”

Oh.

It was.

He was supposed to talk.

Jeetu reached out, the rubber phonecase he kept his phone in feeling oddly… abstract, under his fingers.

_ This couldn’t be real. _

He brought the phone up to his ear.

He didn’t know why, but he did.

“Here.”

_ (That’s not my voice). _

“Why were you asking about officer Ranjan?”

_ Good question. _

Why was he asking?

Jeetu pondered it for but a moment. And still, a moment too long, he knew the answer. There was just a cloud of smoke around it, preventing Jeetu from getting to it. From grasping it well enough to say it out loud.

_ Why was he asking? _

_ Oh. _

_ Right. _

When he managed to speak again, he felt like it was all on autopilot. Eerily calm, unnaturally emotionless and logical, especially given the circumstances. Jeetu was always logical, always rational, but even he could tell logic wasn’t- shouldn’t have been- his brain’s first response to this.

_ Weird,  _ Jeetu thought.

He didn’t dwell on it. 

There were other things to worry about.

“I think officer Ranjan was shot.”

His own voice sounded so... robotic. He didn’t think he liked it very much.

But he didn’t care.

As long as he could speak, he didn’t care.

That got the officer’s attention.

“Officer Ranjan? How do you know this- who are you-”

The man sounded so far away. 

Right in his ear, but far away.

_ Is this real?  _

_ Is this happening? _

“I told you my name.”

The stillness he heard in his own voice was unsettling.

“Jitendra Tripathi.”

_ Was that his name?  _

_ He wasn’t Jitendra Tripathi. _

_ He was. _

“Listen to me-”

The officer did.

“I was on a call with my friend. Ayan Ranjan. when I heard gunshots, three successive ones with a five to ten second time gap between each one. I was on the phone with him, we were confabulating,”

_ Confabul- _

_ Where the fuck did that come from? _

_ What was he, a dictionary? _

“When the line went dead, presumably just as the third shot was fired. This is everything I am aware of.”

_ Why did he sound like an email? _

“I tried calling him repeatedly, for,” Jeetu looked at his watch, “ten minutes. After which, I made the decision of calling the station, because I assumed he was there.”

_ Minutes? no. _

_ It was hours.  _

_ It was seconds.  _

_ None of this feels real. _

“He wouldn’t pick up my call, do you understand me? He wasn’t responding. I'm not the one who shot him, I assure you, I’m thousands of kilometres too far for that. Run this number through your system, track my location, whatever. You’ll find that I’m telling the truth. All I’m asking is that you please, for  _ one _ minute, listen to me when I say one of your men is possibly injured-”

_ Or dead. _

_ No. _

_ No. _

_ This was a nightmare, of some sort.  _

_ Had to be. _

_ Not _

_ real. _

“And needs medical attention. Can you please just send someone to check on him?”

Silence.

He was met with silence. 

Silence which would have driven Jeetu blind with rage, had it not been for… whatever this dampening of his emotive response was.

The man didn’t respond.

_ What was happening? _

_ Nothing made sense. _

_ Why was he so quiet? _

_ Why didn’t Jeetu get a response? _

“Please,” Jeetu asked again, the word monotone and disconnected. It was supposed to sound more desperate, he knew. But it didn’t. This was the best he could manage.

It felt more like an order than a plea. Maybe because that’s what it was. An order, a demand that someone go check in on Ayan. Jeetu would be damned if he lost the love of his life to some moron’s incompetence.

_ But Ayan was fine. _

_ Wasn’t he? _

Jeetu heard the sound of a number being dialled on another phone. The line went quiet for about half a minute, neither man saying anything. The first, because of building concern for a coworker. 

The other, because he couldn’t. 

He just couldn’t.

Jeetu exhaled slowly.

Maybe Ayan would pick up this time. Maybe he was ignoring Jeetu. Maybe he didn’t want to continue the unpleasant conversation _ (fight, it was a fight) _ they had been having, so he just refused to pick Jeetu’s call.

Maybe he was okay.

_ Who?  _

_ Who was okay? _

_ What was this? _

Jeetu waited patiently _ (why was he patient?)  _ until the voice on the other end of the line returned, sounding significantly more panicked than Jeetu’s.

_ He’s panicking more than me. _

_ Funny. _

_ That’s funny. _

_ It makes no sense. _

“...He isn’t responding to the station, either.”

Oh.

That was concerning.

_ Right? _

_ Why wasn’t he panicking? _

_ Was this even happening? _

Jeetu didn’t react.

He should have. He knew he should have. News like this should have left him gutted, should have had him doubled over or on his knees and forced the tears out of his eyes.

But he didn’t react.

_ He isn’t answering the station. _

_ This isn’t real. _

“Yes,” The officer assured him.

“I’ll send someone over as soon as possible.”

Jeetu nodded into the darkness, forgetting for a moment that the man couldn’t see him.

_ Man? _

_ What man? _

_ This isn’t real. _

“Thank you,” Jeetu said, simply because he had been told to do so as a child. Manners were important, after all. That’s what ma had said.

_ He hadn’t talked to her in so long. _

_ Should he call? _

_ Should he call right now? _

_ Who was he talking to? _

Right, the officer.

The officer who said he would check up on Ayan.

Jeetu used this moment of lucidity to his advantage, to get one last sentence out.

“Please,” the word sounded more human this time, “as soon as you can, please, let me know if he’s-”

Jeetu heard the dial tone.

The call got cut off. 

_ Halfway _ through the sentence.

Brilliant.

Fucking brilliant, this was.

Jeetu laughed, then. Hollow, raspy, and unbearably forced. He didn’t even know why he was laughing, really, but he was. And he was too tired to stop himself.

_ So tired. _

And he laughed.

Louder.

Louder.

_ Louder.  _

And then he wasn’t anymore. 

And then laughter made way for a painful sob, the kind that left his heart palpitating and brought a physical pain to his chest, until the tears he didn’t even know were brimming in his eyes spilled over and forced him onto his knees. Trembling and trembling and  _ trembling _ and gasping for breath and forcing his fingertips into his palm, eyes screwed shut, body hunched over pathetically.

He hoped nobody had heard him. He wished somebody had.

Jeetu couldn’t decide.

_ This couldn’t fucking be real. _

He shook his head.

No.

This wasn’t real.

Ayan was okay.

He had to be.

_ Please. _

_ This wasn’t real. _

_ Ayan was okay. _

Jeetu wound his fingers into his sweater, tight enough for his knuckles to pale. He wanted to fucking scream.

_ One hell of a nightmare. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's ok <3


	7. Blood in the Water (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just like that, he's gone.

It was a quiet night, this one.

For officer Raikar, at least.

He didn’t need to take a glance around the office to realise he was all alone amidst the walls of the building. Everyone had long since left the place, leaving him to wait back until the night shifters arrived, though it was nowhere near his responsibility

Madhu hated it.

So much.

He had been hoping to leave earlier today, pick up dinner and beer on the way and head over to his brother’s house, as he always did on friday nights. What with his brother’s newborn son keeping both his mother and father up emulating a banshee’s calls exceedingly well. Madhu had offered to babysit, as any doting uncle would do. 

Until fate decided it had other plans for him.

No, not fate, really. Officer Patel.

The bastard had left a whole two hours earlier than he was supposed to (Madhu’s urge to report the man to his higher ups increased with every passing moment), and simply tossed him the keys with no regard whatsoever for Madhu’s time or plans for the night. Granted, he didn’t exactly have any, but still.

It was unfair.

The fact that this wasn’t the first, or second, or even fifth time someone had dumped an arbitrary responsibility on him only made it all the more infuriating. It wasn’t only officer Patel, though most of Madhu’s anger was quite rightfully directed at him at the moment.

It was everyone. Every goddamn officer in the station, dumping their grunt work on him for his unforgivable crime of being the youngest employee in the station. Granted, he was half the age of some of the others, and granted, his face seemed to scream 19 louder than suggest 24, and granted, he’d only just started on the force.

But he still deserved respect.

He knew he did.

He deserved more than to hear the same, retired excuse over and over again as the policemen tried to justify dumping their worst, most mind numbingly _boring_ responsibilities on his already overworked shoulders. He deserved better than to be told to stop whining, to shut up and do he was told, that this was all he was good for until he started doing “Real police work” one day. As though he never did field work. As though he hadn’t made a few of his own arrests, less than a year into the job.

The night’s wind blew softly, then, against his displeased expression. Madhu huffed, once again cursing bitterly the predicament he’d found himself- no, been forced into.

Nobody ever seemed to consider him a real officer.

He glanced out the window, hoping the night shifters had somehow arrived half an hour ahead of schedule to deliver him from this hell. As expected, they hadn’t. As expected, he had been disappointed by his own baseless sense of blind, childish hope for the third time over the last ten minutes (he was not the most patient of men). 

Nobody ever seemed to respect him like they ought to.

Except, perhaps, for one.

Madhu achingly averted his utterly tragic gaze from the window, focusing it instead on the now empty office that usually accommodated the man Madhu looked up to more than anyone else in that damned station. More than anyone else at all, truth be told. He always stayed back late, always kept Madhu company while he waited impatiently for the clock to run out and grant him his freedom.

He never understood why the man insisted on staying back, though he wasn’t being paid for it. But he was good company (as Madhu had only eventually come to learn), frankly terrible puns aside, so he didn’t find himself minding. 

If anything, his company made the wait all the more bearable.

Plus, talking almost everyday, for about two hours, with someone he aspired every waking moment to be like one day- it was always nice. To say the least.

  
His gaze hovered over the messy, file-covered table (the man was rarely organised), to the little indian flag figurine at the very front, finally landing on the crisp blank pyramid-esque nameplate graced with letters of silver.

_AYAN RANJAN_ , the nameplate read.

Madhu sighed, wishing he were here.

He really liked the man. Now, at least.

He hadn’t at first.

Officer Raikar’s first impression of Officer Ranjan had been… unflattering. 

To put it gently.

Madhu had been terrified.

For one thing, he leaned towards the impersonal. Insisted on calling him “Madhavan” when practically everyone and their mothers called him “Madhu,” to the extent that he recognised it as his own better than his name,

Ayan had come off as quick tempered, at first. Perhaps cold. Distant, even, like he couldn’t possibly have had less of an interest in forming connections with anyone at the station. Ayan only ever came to the station to do what he had to, then went home immediately. Madhu had never seen him outdoors, unless it was on field work. Never seen him with anyone, either. The man appeared to prefer loneliness.

Madhu, who quite loathed loneliness, had vowed to simply stay out of his path. 

And that was before he had told Madhu to shut the fuck up.

Sure, it had been directed at the entire station. But that included him, so it sort of hurt.

His resolve to avoid Ayan had only strengthened. He’d only ever had the displeasure of finding himself alone in a room with the man twice before, and both times he had tried to stay as quiet as possible and pretend not to exist. Which had worked very well, thank you.

(Or so he thought. Ayan had stared quite amusedly at the officer trying so hard to go unnoticed he ducked under a desk)

Madhu had never seen him entertain any sort of company in all the six months he had been in laalgaon.

Save for one man.

He had visited officer Ranjan about three months ago. A short visit, a mere weekend long before he left and Madhu had never seen him again. He had stayed in officer Ranjan’s accommodations, and much like his friend hadn’t stepped out once over the visit. Officer Ranjan hadn’t either. Save for a walk they took around the village in the dead of the night- one Madhu was understandably unaware of.

He didn’t know the first thing about the man.

He had been short, a good 2-3 inches shorter than Madhu. Slightly lengthy hair that sat evenly on his head, parted to the side. He hadn’t once walked around without a sweater the whole time he had been in laalgaon. Madhu actually did not know what he looked like out of a sweater.

He had seen officer Ranjan and the man wear each others’ sweaters once.

Madhu hadn’t quite understood it. He wouldn’t dare let a friend take his clothes. However close they may be. Hell, he wouldn’t let his own brother.

Madhu had briefly wondered if they were brothers, considering how close they were. When he had asked, somewhat shyly, officer Ranjan had laughed more than Madhu had decreed strictly warranted. While it was true they looked absolutely nothing like each other, it wasn’t… that amusing a question.

_Was it?_

_“A close friend,”_ officer Ranjan had corrected him then.

(Madhu couldn’t help but wonder, as those words were uttered, if this man was ayan’s only friend. The possibility wasn’t, after all, unrealistic).

He hadn’t exchanged any words with the man, save for a polite good morning, once. He probably wouldn’t recognise his face if he came by again. Unless he was also wearing one of his sweaters, in which case Madhu was confident he could pick the guy out in a crowded cricket stadium.

It was funny, really, how Madhu associated this mystery individual with a very particular article of clothing, but didn’t have a name to associate him with. Officer Ranjan had never mentioned his name, never even mentioned him before or after the visit. He liked to keep his personal life private. Madhu could respect that.

He did, indeed, find it a tad odd that he never spoke of this supposed “close friend,” but to each their own. That’s what his mother had taught him.

All he had in lieu of a name was the time he overheard officer Ranjan calling him “Jeetu.” 

Madhu’s knowledge of the mystery man began and ended with that.

If officer Ranjan had been here, Madhu could’ve simply asked to satiate his curiosity and kill his boredom in one go. He could ask things without feeling his mouth run dry, now. He had long since entered officer Ranjan’s good books.

The two had struck up quite a bond, then. A mentor and a pretty much perpetually star struck mentee. Madhu sometimes liked to think of him as the brother he never had, mostly because he didn’t think his blood brother a third as cool.

Ayan quite liked the kid too. He often saw his own younger self in Madhavan, with his urge to please and do his best and move up in the ranks as quickly as time would allow. He was easily the least infuriating officer under his command. That was the closest Ayan could come to a compliment, honestly.

All it had taken was the realisation, followed by carefully tailored behaviour that met Ayan’s ideals. The realisation that man wasn’t really quick tempered by nature, no. He had seemed perfectly pleasant and affable when… _Jeetu_ had come to visit, laughing and smiling a lot more than he had ever seen. As far from the Ayan Ranjan he had come to know as possible.

And then a follow up realisation, that all that got (very, very heavily) on Ayan’s nerves was plain incompetence. Or worse, Madhu remembered from a particular incident about two months into Ayan’s stay, incompetence brought about by carelessness. 

He’d made an officer nearly cry that day. Officer Patel, actually, and Madhu hated the guy. So it was funny. He’d made the mistake of laughing, and Ayan had yelled at him too.

That hadn’t been very funny.

But Ayan wasn’t here, so all that he was left with were pleasant memories of asshole Patel’s eyes shining with tears.

And the telephone that sat at his table, but rarely ever rang, thankfully.

Until it did.

At that exact moment.

Madhu groaned.

Answering a call was the absolute last thing he wanted to do right now. He briefly considered ignoring it, but his rigid moral code seemed quite horrified by the notion, so he didn’t.

He raised the receiver to his ear, inwardly cursing his tendency to be a good officer. It was small wonder Ayan had taken a shine to him, really. He was one of the best there, despite being the youngest and newest. Those were undeniable facts.

“Laalgaon station.”

The voice that responded was panicked, almost terrified. It took a moment before Madhu received a response. And when he did, it sounded shaky. Unmistakably rushed.

Perhaps, even oddly familiar.

“Hello?”

* * *

Madhu closed his eyes, trying his best to sound neutral and not betray his annoyance to the already harried soul on the other end of the line. And failed, at some points. This was definitely one of the more challenging calls Madhu had ever attended in his short career as a police officer. 

Perhaps _the_ most.

The man’s voice kept shaking throughout the call, and he kept repeating his words like a broken goddamn tape recorder, and there were random, long moments of silence in between his words. At one point, the loon said nothing and simply breathed aggressively in the background, making officer Raikar _very_ uncomfortable in the process.

As officer Ranjan would say, _what the fuck._

He used that word a lot.

Madhu had picked it up from him.

Madhu didn’t get paid nearly enough for this. Or for anything else he did, really, but that was immaterial at the moment.

He was half tempted to cut the phone thinking it was a prank call, save for a select few moments that kept him from doing so.

The first was when the man stated his name.

_“Jitendra Tripathi,”_ he had said

Something had immediately begun clawing at the back of his mind. A connection waiting to be made, a realisation waiting to occur. Close, irritatingly close, yet _just_ out of reach.

It hadn’t held Madhu’s attention for long.

And then it happened again, when the man introduced himself.

_“Yes, I’m his friend. And can I talk to him myself, please?”_

The gnawing made itself known again.

He was missing something. He knew he was. Some glaringly obvious detail, just outside his field of vision. Scratching at the windows he couldn’t quite reach, demanding to be let in to flood his consciousness. It was tantalizingly close, which only made it all the more infuriating, honestly.

He was definitely missing something.

_But... what?_

_Didn’t officer Ranjan only have the one friend?_

_Or was that something Madhu had assumed?_

It struck him the third time. When the man introduced himself again. Third time’s the charm after all. His mother used to say that too.

_“I already told you my name. Jitendra Tripathi.”_

And then it dawned on him. 

At long last, after an entire goddamn eternity (Madhu felt embarrassed), it dawned on him.

_Jeetu._

_It was him._

_It was Ayan’s friend._

He took a moment to process, once again, what this man had been trying to convince Madhu of.

Ayan’s friend, insisting that Madhu’s mentor had been... Shot.

No.

That didn’t make any sense, no, how the fuck would this man know that-

This wasn’t true. Couldn’t be. It had to be a prank call, aimed specifically at him. People knew how much Madhu looked up to and admired the man, it wasn’t a secret, wasn’t a big reach to assume-

This wasn’t true.

He didn’t want to believe it was.

And then the man- Jeetu- went on.

“Listen to me-”

Like hell Madhu wouldn’t.

“I was on a call with my friend. Ayan Ranjan. when I heard gunshots, three successive ones with a five to ten second time gap between each one. I was on the phone with him, we were confabulating,”

Con _what now_ -

“When the line went dead, presumably just as the third shot was fired. This is everything I am aware of. I tried calling him repeatedly, for… ten minutes. After which, I made the decision of calling the station, because I assumed he was there.”

The man was speaking clearly now, almost too clearly, for someone who was struggling to string words together to halfway form a coherent sentence just moments ago. He sounded like a damn robot.

It was unsettling.

Didn’t feel normal.

  
  


“He wouldn’t pick up my call, do you understand me? He wasn’t responding. I'm not the one who shot him, I assure you, I’m thousands of kilometres too far for that. Run this number through your system, track my location, whatever. You’ll find that I’m telling the truth. All I’m asking is that you please, for one minute, listen to me when I say one of your men is possibly injured, or-”

Jeetu didn’t continue.

Madhu didn’t want him to.

“And needs medical attention. Can you please just send someone to check on him? Please.”

Jeetu paused.

Stilled, for a moment, anticipating a response.

And Madhu kicked himself into action. 

He reached for the phone on the table beside him, the one reserved for “important calls” _(like there could be fucking anything more important than this),_ dialling officer Ranjan’s number as fast as his fingers would allow.

And then he waited.

And waited.

And-

_Fuck._

“...He isn’t responding to the station, either.”

* * *

  
  


It was quiet, when Madhu got there. 

Almost unsettling.

He’d promised Jeetu he would send someone over to make sure officer Ranjan was okay, and then had decided to go check himself. There was nobody else at the station at the time, so Madhu had had no choice but to go himself, but his decision was more influenced by the fact that Jeetu’s words had put him in a fucking panic and he wanted nothing more than to make sure offi- Ayan, was okay.

_Please let him be okay._

Madhu walked to the giant dark brown doors, hoping to all heaven and hell that he would be met with an exasperated, unimpressed _“Madhavan, why are you here?”_

He didn’t get what he wanted.

His panic began to rise.

Something was wrong. 

Very, very fucking wrong.

The door lay unopened, and he didn’t know hot to pick locks because he had been simply too fucking lazy to learn, which he loathed himself for at that moment. Madhavan looked frantically around the deathly still yard, hoping to find some sort of rock to break open a window, or-

It was already open when he got there.

Disturbingly, horrifyingly ajar., 

_Fuck._

_fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-_

Madhu climbed in through the window, hoping against all logic that Ayan would come and tell him to fuck off for entering his house like a damn burglar. He hovered at the window for a moment, drawing his gun and clicking the safety lever off, just in case.

When he dared to take a breath again after holding his unknowingly, it hit him.

The stench.

The gut wrenching, nauseating fucking stench of drying blood.

_Fuck._

_No, no, no, it doesn’t have to be his-_

Madhu raised his gun up high against his front, vigilant for any sounds or sudden movements.

Nothing.

He moved slowly, silently through Ayan’s office, gun still raised, arm perfectly steaedy through the terror, just like he’d had drilled into him over and over during his training. He kept his footsteps light, shifting his weight to his toes to avoid giving away a single footstep.

The stench got oppressive. 

He took another step forward.

Another step towards the most terrifying image he had ever witnessed, another step wards experiencing sheer horror like Madhu never had before.

And then another.

He was at the entrance to the office now. At the door frame, just one turn to his away from-

_No._

_Oh god, no._

_NO._

_NO-_

_  
_ “OFFICER RANJAN? OFF-”

_No, no no no this couldn’t be happening he couldn’t-_

_Fuck, all this blood-_

Madhu barely held back his bile as he knelt down in the sea of red, ignoring the unpleasantness of his mentor’s blood seeping through his uniform and meeting his bare skin. He couldn’t care less, couldn’t give a flying fuck where he knelt or what happened to his uniform or- just, _fuck, please please let him be alive, please-_

He was deathly pale.

_No, no this isn’t fair, please-_

He struggled to turn Ayan’s disturbingly limp for over to get a look at his face, to place his fingers under the man’s nose and feel his breath, confirm that he was alive, _please-_

He took a moment to put his fingers where they needed to be. Ayan’s half closed eyes, near-white visage and parted, shrunk lips shocked him into stillness.

_God, no-_

He put his fingers under Ayan’s nose, cradling the man’s upper back in his rapidly reddening lap.

He felt nothing. 

The blood generously coating his fingers kept him from feeling a goddamn thing.

Or so he told himself, anyway. 

Madhu couldn’t accept that he was dead.

He couldn’t be.

Officer Ayan fucking Ranjan couldn’t be dead. No.

_Please, please, please, he doesn’t deserve this-_

Madhu took a second to regain his thoughts, moving immediately to Ayan’s neck To check his pulse.

He felt nothing. 

Again.

Madhu felt his heart sink.

So this was it, then?

He was too late to save-

Ayan was-

That was all? Just like that, the best police officer, most competent leader he had ever known.

Gone.

He felt tears prick the back of his eyes.

Gone. He was gone.

Madhu had been too late.

He-

Ayan Ranjan was dead.

Madhu closed his eyes, trying his best to keep himself from screaming in sheer frustration and indignation. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair, not a goddamn bit, Ayan didn't deserve to die so young and so alone, in this frightening a way. He hadn't fucking deserved watch himself bleed out. 

His heart felt like it had been ripped out.

Ayan Ranjan was dead.

And there was nothing Madhu could do.

Just like that, he was... gone. forever.

It wasn't fair.

* * *

_beat._

Madhu’s eyes widened.

He felt a movement under his fingers.

_beat._

That- that was a pulse.

He felt a fucking pulse.

Weak, barely there, but enough for it to mean Ayan was alive, and-

It was a pulse.

He would’ve cried of joy, had it not been for the very real possibility that Ayan would die in his arms anyway. He needed to get this man to a hospital. Fast.

But _he found a fucking pulse._

That was all that mattered, that was all that would ever matter.

Ayan Ranjan was _alive._


	8. Blood in the Water (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayan doesn't want to be alone

He found the bullet wound, eventually.

Madhu gagged the disgust away, and blinked the overwhelming odour burning his eyes away, ignored the sickening stickiness of blood on his fingers, the squelch under his knees as he waded through far too much of the substance he had ever wanted to see his entire life.

The fact that quite a bit of this had come out of Ayan didn’t make matters much better, truth be told.

Madhu didn’t bother checking the other man. He couldn’t. The fucking scum could die for all he cared, all he could bring his attention to rest on was saving officer Ranjan’s life. 

Madhu pulled his uniform shirt off his head, followed by his undershirt (as much as his modesty made him flush a tiny amount at the action), tying it around the gaping whole in Ayan’s thigh. He applied as much pressure on it with his left hand as possible, using his right to reach into his back pocket and pull out his phone.

His fingers shook as he typed. The bloody fingerprints on his screen made it all the more harder for him to contact the nearest hospital he could think of that had an actually functioning ambulance system, this fucking shithole of a town didn‘t even have those most of the time.

The line was ringing.

“Come on, come  _ on _ -”

_ What the fuck is taking so long,  _ Ayan would have said, had he been awake right then.

Madhu glanced down at the shadow of a breathing soul who lay pathetically in front of him. It hurt to see what had become of officer Ranjan. It hurt to see a man he revered more than any other reduced to a veritable husk of a man, paper thin and limp and… dying.

Madhu felt tears prick his eyes again.

He was dying.

Madhu had stopped the bleeding, for now, but the gaunt image in front of his eyes did not yield a very reassuring feeling.

He hovered his fingers over Ayan’s death-like face, debating whether it would be disrespectful to close his eyes. A ritual done for the dead, he was well aware, and Ayan wasn’t dead, Ayan wasn’t fucking dead, there had been a pulse-

He checked again.

Madhu sighed sharply, in minute relief.

There was a pulse.

He averted his gaze from Ayan’s neck, his stare inevitably falling on his eyes again.

Half closed. Half closed, as though he couldn’t decide between life and death.

It was a terrifying sight, unnatural and upsetting to the extent that he found himself having to bite down on his tongue to control his nausea upon seeing the state of the eyes that once commanded respect, the sheer lack of light in his eyes affecting him far more than the blood surrounding him had affected him

Madhu reached out to close them, then drew his hand back.

No.

It felt wrong.

The line finally connected.

“Malar Hospital.”

“HELLO?,”

He squeezed Ayan’s lifeless hand.

"I NEED AN AMBULANCE AT-"

* * *

The surgery lasted five hours.

Madhu watched the doctors rush past, headed by a fierce looking woman in bun and a look of purpose in her eyes. She was the first to receive Ayan, the first to bark order after order at a team of doctors who unquestioningly did as she told them to, despite seeming younger than most of them. She was firm, her every word steady and unwasted.She felt sure of herself, and the very idea that Ayan was in clearly very capable hands filled Madhu with reassurance in and of itself.

He watched them race Ayan on a gurney to the nearest operating theatre, and just as the man disappeared out of sight, Madhu felt his chest fill with panic again.

“You brought him in?” A feminine, unapologetically authoritative voice asked him.

Madhu turned around, faced with the same doctor who commanded Ayan’s first respondents before.

He nodded, rather unsure of how to respond, exactly. Was he going to be chewed out for using an undershirt? Did he fuck up? Oh god-

She nodded at him in approval, though she didn’t quite grace him with a smile.

“We can’t know for sure yet, but there’s a good chance he’ll live.”

Madhu blinked.

“You did good, kid.”

He almost objected to the term, considering how the woman seemed to be about 30 and in no position to be calling him kid, and almost told her that he was 24 and not a late teenager, but the thought evaporated from his mind as soon as it even began crossing it.

She readjusted the glasses that lay low on the bridge of her nose, and smiled minutely at him, and though he found even that intimidating to an extent, it did end up calming him. Perhaps it was the lab coat that was easy to believe. Perhaps the air she carried herself with, like she knew exactly what she was talking about, and talked no bullshit. Or perhaps it was none of these, just Madhu’s need for reassurance that made him accept it unquestioningly from any halfway reliable source that gave it to him.

Whatever it was, it undid the knot of panic in his chest.

He walked a few paces backwards and deposited himself into an empty chair, exhaustion and delayed shock suddenly numbing his bones.

The doctor watched him carefully.

Madhu put his head in his hands, took in a deep breath or two to calm the adrenaline rushing through his veins, and then looked up. Slowly.

He didn’t expect to see her watching him.

“What?” he asked, sounding ruder than he had originally intended.

_ Crap. _

The doctor didn’t seem to outwardly react to his rudeness. Perhaps she understood. Perhaps he wasn’t the only nervous basket case that had walked these hospital corridors being rude to doctors simply because he was having a tough time.

She ignored him.

“Does he have any family the hospital could contact?”

She spoke fast, like she was in a hurry to get this over with and enter the operating theatre where her skills would be much better used saving a man’s life.

“...who?” Madhu said, standing up again, realising not a moment later who was being talked about.

His brain evidently wasn’t functioning at its optimum.

He wanted to go home.

His conscience wouldn’t let him.

The Doctor’s expression stayed neutral.

“The victim? Mr-” she looked down at the patient file in her hand, and madhu tracked the movements of her eyes as they found Ayan’s name at the top of the page. She looked up at him again.

Or down, more like, the woman stood about 3 inches taller than him.

“Ayan Ranjan. Do you know of any family he has? Mother, father, wife-”

Madhu blinked.

And shook his head no.

He hadn’t realised the sheer extent to which Ayan fiercely guarded his personal life until now. Madhu knew absolutely nothing about the man, except for where he had been transferred to laal gaon from.

The doctor-  _ Iyer,  _ her nametag read _ , Dr Shruti Iyer- _ looked at him quizzically.

“Partner, then?”

She was met with a shrug.

“Mr Ranjan works alone, he has no partners.”

“No, I-” she couldn’t help the amused smile that sneaked onto her face. It was gone before Madhu could notice, her expression eased into professional as ever.

“I mean- girlfriend? Boyfriend? That sort of partner. Anyone at all we could call for him?”

Madhu blinked.

His mind hovered to the man who had made the call. Jitendra Tripathi. That’s what he had said his name was. He deserved to know, hell, he’d been paramount in saving officer Ranjan’s life. And if it indeed was the same “Jeetu” Ayan had referred to as a close friend, then the very fucking least Madhu could do was call him back.

But he’d have to go to the station for that, he didn’t have the man’s number. And…

He couldn’t leave Ayan alone.

Wouldn’t let himself.

Not until the man was awake.

“....no, I don’t think so.”

He could’ve sworn he saw a flash of sympathy flit by her face.

It seemed misplaced sympathy, to him. He wanted to explain to her that Ayan Ranjan was not a loner, and he did, in fact, have people in his life. Maybe. They were just people Madhu hadn’t the goddamn clue about.

But his words failed him rather spectacularly, just then.

And he wasn’t entirely sure that was true, either.

Shruti nodded. 

“That’s… fine, that’s okay. We’ll- We’ll ask him when he wakes up.”

Madhu blushed.

This was embarrassing, he felt so useless-

Apparently, she noticed.

“No, listen, it’s okay.” Her voice went from severe to soothing in an instant. He heard her address him in an unfamiliar, yet reassuring voice.

“You’ve been enough help already, officer…?”

“Raikar.”

She smiled, and this time, there was something bright behind it. The original steely professionality with the soft edges seemed to have been replaced by something else, a different sort of glow that felt warm all the way down to its core,, and Madhu found himself smiling back despite himself.

"You saved a man's life, officer Raikar.

* * *

He didn’t know where he was.

Ayan slowly blinked his eyes open against the blinding hospital lights, trying his best to make sense of… Anything. Anything at all.

He didn’t know what had happened that brought him here, the last thing he remembered was leaving the station to be able to call Jeetu. Ayan closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, tried to bring forth memories that simply refused to come.

_ Where the fuck am I? _

Ayan turned his neck as much as he possibly could, coming face to face with an iv drip that seemed to lead to his hand, and the delicat  _ beep beep beep _ of a machine mimicking the steady rhythm of his every heartbeat.

He felt numb.

_ Is… Is this a hospital? _

Ayan felt his veins fill with fear.

_ Why am I in a hospital? _

_ What the fuck happened? _

_ Why the fuck can’t i remember anything? _

His exhausted mind roved, blooming question after question but answers to none. It was frustrating, to say the least. Ayan knew he could glean… at least something, anything at all, if he could just fucking remember the past few hours. But his mind seemed to be actively rebelling against him, because all it turned up was blanks. Blank, empty fucking gaps in his reality. Goddamn void he couldn’t help but stare down.

He tried to focus on his last clear memory.

_ Jeetu, wasn’t it? He was going to call Jeetu? _

Ayan blinked.

He could feel no hands on any part of him, could see no faces hovering over his field of vision, however blurry. No sounds of conversation. Nothing.

He was alone.

All alone, in that terrifying room

And for the first time in fucking forever, Ayan Ranjan did not want to be alone.

He felt his eyes fill with tears, of exhaustion, of frustration, helplessness, just as one crippling goddamn question invaded his consciousness.. 

_ Where’s Jeetu? _

**Author's Note:**

> :D thanks for reading! 
> 
> And don't forget. 
> 
> RANJEET SUPREMACY


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